Re: [boost] Modular Packages on Conan.io

Subject: Re: [boost] Modular Packages on Conan.io
From: Diego Rodriguez-Losada (diego.rlosada_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-09-24 15:39:27

2017-09-22 19:41 GMT+02:00 Rene Rivera via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>:

> On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 12:32 PM, Stefan Seefeld via Boost <
> boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> > On 22.09.2017 13:14, Rene Rivera via Boost wrote:
> > > One of the most requested feature from Boost users is having a
> "modular"
> > > distribution. I'm happy to announce that there are now modular packages
> > > available when using the Conan package manager from the Bincrafters
> team
> > <
> > > http://bit.ly/2wM5AdT>[1]. Using the packages requires no prior setup
> > other
> > > than the Conan tool. Immediately available are all 130 libraries from
> the
> > > 1.64.0 release. And in a few days we will follow up with the same for
> the
> > > 1.65.1 release. For help using the packages you can bug the Bincrafters
> > > team <http://bit.ly/2xWEGEX>[3] in the #conan cpplang.slack.com
> channel
> > <
> > > http://bit.ly/2hnMB3o>[4].
> >
> > It's great to see that effort !
> > How are these packages built, and what format(s) do they use ?
> >
>
> Underneath they are built on Travis and Appveyor on various configurations
> using the existing B2 build files (with some B2 magic). The binaries are
> distributed through JFrom Bintray (the same provider that Boost uses for
> the monolithic release). You would have to consult the Conan documentation
> and source for the internal format (i.e. inside the archives it generates).
>
>
The format of conan packages is not explicitly documented, though
relatively simple:

- There is a common "export" folder containing the conan recipe
(conanfile.py), as well as other possible files. That is only necessary for
conan purposes, and it is common to all binaries for that package.
- Then for each binary you have a "conan_package.tgz" that will contain the
artifacts, most common layout is include folder with headers, lib folder
with libraries and bin folder with executables. There is nothing related to
conan in this tgz, just the artifact. Then each binary will contain also a
"conaninfo.txt" text file that contains the meta information of that binary
(the settings, compiler, version, options (shared/static), and also the
dependencies versions that binary was built against. Finally there is a
"conanmanifests.txt" with the md5 checksums for all files.