Re: Contribution to core library

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-01-11 16:19:46

On 2020-01-10 17:02, anshu khare via Boost wrote:
> Hello mentors,
> 
> I would like to contribute to the core library of BOOST. I am working on
> windows. I cloned boostorg/core library. After cloning I found that there
> are many folders.

Using Boost.Core alone is not possible. You have to at least also clone 
the dependencies. More realistically, you should clone Boost 
superproject[1] and all its submodules, which will include Boost.Core 
and its dependencies.

   git clone https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git boost
   cd boost
   git submodule update --init --recursive

After that you need to bootstrap Boost.Build as described in the Getting 
Started page[2] and create links to library headers by invoking `b2 
headers` in your Boost root directory. After that you will be able to 
build Boost libraries and run tests. Building libraries is described in 
Getting Started, to run tests you can just invoke `b2` (possibly with 
arguments) in the libs/<library>/test directory.

> Could you please tell which folder should I look up?

In the Boost tree, you'll be working in libs/<library> folder. Each 
library has a set of common subfolders, such as:

   meta - library description
   include/boost - public headers
   src - buildable sources and private headers
   build - Boost.Build scripts for building the library, if there are 
buildable sources
   example - library usage examples
   doc - library documentation
   test - library tests, including Boost.Build script for testing

So, for Boost.Core you'd be writing headers in 
libs/core/include/boost/core, writing and running tests in 
libs/core/test, etc. When you create new headers you'll have to invoke 
`b2 headers` in the Boost root again to create links to the new headers.

[1]: https://github.com/boostorg/boost/
[2]: https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_72_0/more/getting_started/windows.html