Re: Building a Boost Framework through XCode

From: Chiedo Acholonu (chiedo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-06-30 13:21:28

> On Wednesday 29 June 2005 03:49, chiedo_a wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> >
> > I'm working with a group of people on a boost project and most members
> > would rather not use the command line to build the boost libraries. My
> > manager requested that I create a XCode project (using 2.1 on OS X 10.4.1) 
> > that builds a boost.framework file that will grant any project boost
> > functionality when it is included. The framework must compile the headers
> > and libraries using the .hpp and .cpp files. Does anyone have any
> > suggestions on how to actually accomplish this?
> >
> > My current strategy is to basically read through the jamfiles and figure
> > out which .cpp files are necessary for each library (most likely all the
> > files in the ..../src directory). From there I should theoretically be
> > able to just add these files to an xcode framework target and compile.
> > Right? Are there any environment variables or compiler settings that are
> > going to need to be set?
> 
> 1. You can't do what you're trying ;-) For example, the Boost.Test library has 
> several library targets, and all of the define "main". If you link them all 
> together you'll either get link error, or underfined behaviour. No other 
> library has this problem, as far as I know.
> 
> 2. I am not aware about any defines needed specifically for OSX, but you might 
> want to check tools/v1/darwin-tools.jam for the compiler flags that are 
> passed. 
> 
> - Volodya
> 
> -- 
> Vladimir Prus
> http://vladimir_prus.blogspot.com
> Boost.Build V2: http://boost.org/boost-build2
> 

> Though I question the point of creating an XCode project to build boost as
> a framework, here is how I would suggest that you proceed. Build the
> libraries that interest you using "bjam -d2", together with any additional
> build features/variants that you may require. The output from the above
> command will give you the necessary list of files and compiler options. You
> can then figure out how to build an XCode project that will produce the
> same compiler options, using the required files. You can check your work by
> comparing the XCode build results with the bjam -d2 output. 
> 
> - Mat

Thanks for the reply Vladimir and Mat. So far, I've been able to build all libraries except 
for boost.test. For the time being, I'll exclude boost.test. From what I can tell, the 
framework is working, though I haven't done much testing besides a few of the simple 
example files included in boost. I just had a few questions if you guys have any time:

1) What files don't have to be included in the framework? I'm somewhat new with boost so 
I don't completely know what files are contained in each directory. I currently have 
removed all .bat files, and am considering removing all the .sh files. I noticed that some of 
the .cpp files may be able to be excluded. Files such as argv_traverser.cpp seem redundant 
because all it does is include argv_traverser.ipp, which is included by argv_traverser.hpp.

2) What would be the best way to test that all boost functionality is working properly with 
my framework? I need to test that my actual framework was compiled correctly and 
contains all the appropriate symbols.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Chiedo Acholonu