thoughts and comments on bjam/Boost.Build V2

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-01 18:45:31

Greetings,

I am a new user of bjam and Boost.Build on WinXP SP1. I am looking to 
provide Jamfiles for my Boost library I am developing as well as the 
possibility of migrating my own projects to the system.

[1] I find it useful to write the error messages of a compiler to a text 
file. This is easy to do, e.g.:
bjam -a > output.txt

The problem comes when using tools that write error messages to stderr 
instead of stdout as only stdout is logged (I'm not sure if this occurs in 
other OSs). The solution I have come up with is to write a program called 
'grab' that merges the two streams, but it only works on Windows, e.g.:
grab bjam -a > output.txt

I was wondering if any other users have come across this before, or if it 
was possible to merge the two within bjam itself! Are the Boost regression 
tests affected by this, as they filter from stdin the output generated by 
bjam?

[2] It would be useful to have a section in the documentation on configuring 
the tools, with common errors and solutions. E.g. building using Borland 
C++Compiler 5.5, I get the following error:

borland.link bin\borland\debug\hello.exe bin\borland\debug\hello.rsp
Fatal: Unable to open file 'C.OBJ'

set "PATH=d:\devel\C++Builder/bin/;%PATH%"
"d:\devel\C++Builder/bin/bcc32" -v -q -v -v -tWD -tWC -tWR -tWC 
-WM-
-L"d:\devel\C++Builder/lib" -e"bin\borland\debug\hello.exe"
@"bin\borland\debug\hello.rsp"

...failed borland.link bin\borland\debug\hello.exe 
bin\borland\debug\hello.rsp..

[3] Is anyone planning on adding support for Metrowerks CodeWarrior?

[4] How do you tell Build what compilers to use? The command line:
bjam -sTOOLS=gcc

does not work unless gcc is the first tool in user-config.jam! (Is this me 
being braindead!?)

[5] How do you add configuration information such as:

<tools>gcc : <language>cpp : <lib>/lib/libstdc++.a
<tools>msvc : <include>d:/devel/PlatformSDK/200210/include

into Jamrules?

Regards,
Reece Dunn

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