Re: [Boost-build] Mid-level example of using bjam outside of boost

From: Roland Schwarz (roland.schwarz_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-24 12:12:17

Tim St. Clair wrote:
> From what you are telling me it appears that I need to grab all which 
> is in tools/build/v2 in order to build.  

Hmm, maybe you don't see the trees, because we are in wood? ;-)
Let's try to explain a little more:

1) There is a tool called (b)jam. This is a binary tool which sources
    you find in tools/jam. Once compiled this usually goes to your
    bin directory. (Where make also lives.) When invoked as jam it
    is behaving as the legacy jam tool. Jam besides being able to
    build projects has a built-in scripting language. This brings me to

2) There is a set of scripts called the Boost.Build . These scripts
    can be regarded a different tool, which just has to be installed
    on your machine like e.g. a shell script. Then you need a means
    to interpret these scripts. The interpreter (you guessed it) is
    the jam tool.

3) To make things simpler the scripts are simply invoked by calling
    bjam.

The notion "grab all that is in tools/build/v2" is similar to "grab all
that is needed to run jam".

If you are on debian just apt-get install boost-build bjam .

So yes, to install Boost.Build on your machine you will need almost
everything from tools/build/v2. Put it e.g. into /usr/share/boost-build
and bjam will take it up from there automagically. (It has a compiled
in path to do so.) On windows set a global environment variable
BOOST_BUILD_PATH to point to this directory. This is all you need to
install the Boost.Build tool. (Btw.: calling bjam without the scripts,
although possible, is not very useful.)

You do not need the boost tree at all. Boost.Build just is a separate
project of boost which can be used totally independent from other
boost code.

> So if you know of any other projects which I can look @ that would be 
> *useful*

Sorry I can't help with this one. Others?

I recommend to try out the example I mentioned in my last mail, to
get you started after having installed Boost.Build succesfully.

Roland