Re: The right configuration mechanism

From: Jonathan Turkanis (technews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-08-05 17:16:38

David Abrahams wrote:
> "Jonathan Turkanis" <technews_at_[hidden]> writes:
>
>> Vladimir Prus wrote:
>>> [resend, previous message did not appear on gmane]
>>>
>>> I would like to make the final attempt to settle on the right
>>> approach to configure toolsets. I'd appreciate comments from
>>> everybody on the list! It's the last time that we can tweak the
>>> syntax.
>>
>> Will the syntax described in "C++ Cookbook" still be supported? The
>> book has gone into copy editing now; I can still change stuff but
>> not for much longer.
>>
>> Jonathan
>
> You wrote the "C++ Cookbook?" Who knows what syntax you used there?
> I sure don't!

I was mostly addressing Volodya, who's read a draft of the chapter on Build
systems, but I should have explained more, since others are reading:

I've written two chapters of O'Reilly C++ Cookbook, which is scheduled to come
out in Nov 2005. It contains five "recipes" about using Boost.Build, the first
of which described installation and configuration.

The types of sytax I describe are

using toolset-name ;

if there's just one version of a toolset and it's installed in a standard
location,

using toolset-name : : command ;

if there's just one version of a toolset but its installed in a non-standard
location, and

using toolset-name : version-name-1 : command-1 ;
...
using toolset-name : version-name-N : command-N ;

if there's more than one version of a toolset.

If this syntax might not work after the official release of BB.v2, I'll just say
"follow the instructions in user-config.jam" (assuming that some good
instructions will be put there).

Jonathan