Re: [boost] RFC: Separating Boost.Python from Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] RFC: Separating Boost.Python from Boost
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-05-31 00:48:50

On 5/31/2015 12:20 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
> On Sat, May 30, 2015 at 3:37 PM, Steven Watanabe <watanabesj_at_[hidden]>
> wrote:
>
>> AMDG
>>
>> On 05/30/2015 01:24 PM, Robert Ramey wrote:
>>>
>>> If boost build doesn't do it this way but rather depends upon some list,
>>> well it would be easy for boost build to generate the list from the
>>> directory structure - no other changes necessary.
>>>
>>>
>>> Actually, this would be quite easy for me to implement as as shell
>>> script. I realize that this would repeat some dependency checking but it
>>> would still work.  In general, the building of all of boost should be
>>> the union of building each library in the libs directory.  Similar for
>>> test.
>>>
>>
>> Building is currently done this way (with a few special
>> cases).  The tests have a hard-coded list in status/.
>>
>
> I've wished for some time that was not the case. And that we could do a
> simple glob and automate the set of tested libraries. But the non-flat
> structure of the current arrangement makes that much harder than just
> having a manual list. I've mentioned before that I would very much prefer
> if we didn't have libraries within libraries in the libs structure. As a
> flat structure would make it possible to automate. But library authors have
> ignored my view on this. Note this also make the root build files more
> complicated than they need to be.

This is not a problem if there were an agreement as to the directory 
structure of a Boost library in the directory tree. But aside from the 
'include' directory structure so that symlinks and 'b2 headers' can be 
set up to work correctly I don't believe there is such an agreement.

I do not believe that a flat directory structure is optimal. There are 
libraries that should be nested within other libraries if conceptually 
this is the case.