Re: [boost] [Git] Moving beyond arm waving?

Subject: Re: [boost] [Git] Moving beyond arm waving?
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-02-08 16:48:45

At Tue, 8 Feb 2011 16:03:33 -0500,
Beman Dawes wrote:
> 
> Dave wrote:
> 
> > You only have to generate a forwarding header when you actually have a new
> > header file. Â Yes, you have to check for the existence of forwarding headers
> > each time, but that's not the same cost as actually generating them.
> 
> Forwarding headers have the advantage of working regardless of the
> filesystem. But many Boost lib developers are running on filesystems
> that support directory symlinks. Directory symlinks have a lot of
> advantages; you only have to generate one per library, they are
> faster, and easier to use with IDE's that let you click on a header to
> open it. With a forwarding header, you have to do that twice to get at
> the real header.
> 
> I've been testing on Windows with boost/filesystem being a directory
> symlink to ../../libs/filesystem/include/boost/filesystem 

Since when does Windows support symlinks?!

> and it works smoothly with no changes whatsoever to either by bjam testing or
> VisualC++ IDE testing.
> 
> Would it be possible to generate directory symlinks instead of
> forwarding headers if the filesystem supports them?

Sure!  What filesystem doesn't?  FAT?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com