Re: [boost] Library metadata

Subject: Re: [boost] Library metadata
From: Daniel James (dnljms_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-02-24 08:10:25

On 24 February 2014 12:18, Jason Roehm <jasonr_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> Maybe this is out of scope, but another piece of metadata that could be
> useful would be some indication of compiler support (or non-support). Since
> some libraries are known to not work with certain compilers, it would be
> nice if there was a standard, central place to find that information on a
> library-by-library basis. I once spent a while trying to find open bugs that
> would explain why Boost.Coroutine didn't compile on my system with gcc 4.4.
> After a lot of searching, I found that this fact was known and indicated in
> the regression test configuration (i.e. gcc 4.4 isn't a supported compiler).
> I was unable to find this stated anywhere in the documentation, though. I
> think it could be beneficial to users if there was a standard place to find
> this information quickly.

This data is sort of stored in the explicit failure xml file (in the
status directory), although perhaps not in a form that easily
summarised for users. As an example, the coroutine entry follows. It
only gives very specific versions of gcc, rather than stating 'gcc 4.4
and earlier', or whatever is appropriate. This is pretty much baked
into the xml schema, which is only designed for testing purposes.
There's a vague plan to break up the file and put it in the metadata
folders, maybe that could be extended to include some documentation
info which we could present to users.

    <!-- coroutine -->
    <library name="coroutine">
      <mark-unusable>
        <toolset name="cray-*"/>
        <toolset name="darwin-4.4"/>
        <toolset name="darwin-4.4_0x"/>
        <toolset name="gcc-4.4.4"/>
        <toolset name="gcc-4.4.4_0x"/>
        <toolset name="msvc-8.0"/>
        <toolset name="pgi-*"/>
        <toolset name="vacpp-*"/>
        <toolset name="gcc-mingw-4.4*"/>
      </mark-unusable>
    </library>