Re: [boost] Boost CMake support - Request for Comment

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost CMake support - Request for Comment
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-10-15 13:08:48

On 10/15/2018 3:10 AM, Alexander Grund via Boost wrote:
> 
>>> Why do you think a potential Boost.CMake proposal cannot offer an
>>> equivalent of check-target-builds that internally uses the checks
>>> based on Boost.Config or Boost.Predef?
>>
>> I do not think what you propose. I am just pointing out that this 
>> feature, used extensively from config and/or predef for a number of 
>> Boost libraries, needs to have an equally easy CMake equivalent so 
>> that converting the library's build or test jamfile to CMake is fairly 
>> trivial. 
> 
> Sorry, but WHY exactly do you need to have the checks from 
> Boost.Config/Predef in CMake? Do they exist in B2? In which form? Isn't 
> Boost.Config/Predef a set of headers defining macros for consumption in 
> source code?

A great many Boost libraries use the checks from Boost.Config/Predef in 
their jamfiles. What do you propose to do when these jamfiles need to be 
converted for the purposes of using CMake for these libraries ? Asking 
each library maintainer to provide some CMake equivalent for the checks 
that they do is not realistic. Providing a CMake equivalent in the 
Boost.Config and Boost.Predef libraries for all the current checks which 
are offered by those libraries, and then using these equivalents by 
other libraries which currently use them, is realistic. But someone has 
to do the work of converting all the current checks in Boost.Config and 
Boost.Predef to a CMake equivalent, and which can be used by other 
libraries in their CMake implementation.