Re: [release] Boost 1.81.0 Release Candidate 1 is available

From: Mojca Miklavec (mojca.miklavec.lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-12-12 14:49:56

On Fri, 9 Dec 2022 at 09:57, Alexander Grund via Boost wrote:
> Am 09.12.22 um 05:41 schrieb Mojca Miklavec via Boost:
> >
> > Boost is only usable to me when it contains CMake support and I cannot
> > test the above tarballs which completely lack it.
>
> You need to install Boost with the official workflow (bootstrap and b2)
> which will generate CMake config files consumeable via `find_package`

The thing is ... is there an easy way to replace something like

    set(BOOST_VERSION_SOURCE 1.81.0.beta1)
    FetchContent_Declare(boost
        URL https://github.com/boostorg/boost/releases/download/boost-${BOOST_VERSION_SOURCE}/boost-${BOOST_VERSION_SOURCE}.tar.xz)
    FetchContent_MakeAvailable(boost)

with the code that will run and compile bootstrap and b2 automatically
and subsequently find the installed version, at least for some typical
Linux and MSVC?

(I assume that I should be able to come up with some overly complex
code to achieve that, but I would really like to avoid going that
way.)
Asking every user to install a gazillion of dependencies is a support nightmare.
Having boost (and many other dependencies) compile automatically as
part of the build process (when dependencies are not already found on
the system) is an extremely helpful lifesaver.

Mojca

(PS: When I tried installing a binary version of boost for GitHub
actions on Windows via various package managers it sometimes took 11
minutes or more, so I have given up on that idea.)