Re: [Boost-build] Autodetection for VC++ Express 2005

From: Johan Nilsson (r.johan.nilsson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-16 08:33:49

"Reece Dunn" <msclrhd_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:loom.20051116T131825-955_at_post.gmane.org...
> Johan Nilsson <r.johan.nilsson <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> "Alexey Pakhunov" <alexeypa <at> gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:dldcub$6tp$1 <at> sea.gmane.org...
>> > Deane Yang wrote:
>> >> But I'm still a little baffled by why when I try to run bjam.exe
>> >> without
>> >>   running vsvars32.bat first, bjam can't find the vcvars32.bat or
>> >> vsvars32.bat script. Do I need to set something in my PATH variable or
>> >> something like that?
>> >
>> > The attached patch fixed detection of VC++ Express 2005. Can you try
>> > it,
>> > please? It should detect it as 'msvc-8.0express'.
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> IMHO 'msvc-8.0express' is a bit verbose (I assume it also has impact on
>> the
>> generated libraries). How about 'msvc-8.0-e', or 'msvc-8.0e'?
>
> msvc-8.0-e won't work in bjam because it interprets the 'e' as a
> sub-feature of
> the toolset (e.g. msvc-7.1-intel). msvc-8.0e is not clear as to what the
> 'e'
> stands for (energy? experience? ...)

AFAIK, there're no such editions of msvc, so having the context in mind
helps here ;-)

That aside, how would the generated boost libraries be tagged, assuming that
VC8 express was used to build them?

>
>> [The stuff below is just for discussion, I don't know enough details to
>> have
>> any firm opinions]
>>
>> There exists (at least) four different VC++ 8.0 editions; Expresss,
>> Standard, Professsional and Team System. Each of these has some different
>> properties (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/hs24szh9 for a
>> brief overview).
>
> VC8 Express (and VC7.1 Toolkit) place where they are installed to in a
> different location to the Standard, Pro and Team System versions.
> Therefore,
> they need to look in different places in te registry. However, I don't see
> why:
>
>   using msvc : 8.0 ;
>
> would not try the standard VC8 install first and if that fails, try the
> express version (same for 7.1toolkit). This would simplify the list of
> supported versions, however you might wan't both standard and
> express/toolkit
> versions installed on the same machine and invoke each.

Sounds like a good idea, assuming that the possibility to explicitly state 
the
edition exists.

>
>> For what reasons (and for which versions) would we need to differentiate
>> the
>> various editions? Isn't the compiler (CL.EXE) basically the same,
>> optimizing
>> compiler for all editions - or do we also need to know if the
>> distribution
>> contains a full Platform SDK, debug libraries, cross-compilers, 64-bit
>> editions, etc ...
>
> There is already logic to detect and configure for x86, x86-amd64 and
> x86-ia64
> variants of VC8. These can be selected using the <architecture>,
> <instruction-set> and <address-model> features.

OK. I hate to mention this, but ... docs?.

// Johan