[Boost-build] bjam and -fPIC

From: Mike (mike.otj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-26 18:25:42

Hello,

I am attempting to build boost 1.34.1 on 64-bit Linux with bjam v2 passing 
the -fPIC compiler option along to gcc/g++.  I would like to pass all 
necessary bjam parameters via the command line.

After building bjam, I make the following call:

bjam --v2 -d2 --toolset=gcc gcc/variant=release,debug gcc/cflags=-fPIC 
gcc/cxxflags=-fPIC gcc/linkflags=-fPIC --build-dir=<my builddir 
path> --prefix=<my install path> install

The output from bjam shows that sources compiled for static linking do *not* 
have the -fPIC flag.  For example:

 "g++"  -ftemplate-depth-128 -O3 -finline-functions -Wno-inline -Wall -pthread 
  -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DNDEBUG  -I"." -c -o "<my 
builddir>/release/link-static/threading-multi/execution_monitor.o" 
"libs/test/src/execution_monitor.cpp"

This version of execution_monitor.o is put into the 
libboost_test_exec_monitor-gcc41-mt-1_34_1.a archive.

Alternatively, sources that are pulled into a shared library have the -fPIC 
flag.  For example:

 "g++"  -ftemplate-depth-128 -O3 -finline-functions -Wno-inline -Wall -fPIC  
-pthread  -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DBOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK=1 -DNDEBUG  -I"." -c -o 
"<my builddir>/release/threading-multi/execution_monitor.o" 
"libs/test/src/execution_monitor.cpp"

This version of execution_monitor.o is pulled into 
libboost_prg_exec_monitor-gcc41-mt-1_34_1.so.1.34.1

Can anyone tell me why -fPIC is not passed to all calls of g++/gcc?

I am also observing that the -fPIC flag is not passed to any link steps.

Aside: I have already tried to use the bjam v1 syntax to override the 
gcc/g++ calls, but it seems as though bjam v1 cannot be invoked.

Thanks,

Mike