Re: [Boost-build] Problem building python helloworld with bjam

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-07-12 05:54:07

On Thursday 10 July 2008 23:10:58 Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> Jurko Gospodnetić wrote:
> >   Hi.
> >>  I changed:
> >> use-project boost
> >>   C:/Program Files/boost/boost_1_35_0;
> >> To:
> >> use-project boost     : "C:/Program Files/boost/boost_1_35_0";
> >
> >   In Boost Jam scripts whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, new-lines, 
> > etc...) are very imporant. For instance... you must have at least one 
> > whitespace character before the trailing semicolon (;).
> 
> Out of curiosity (since I have run into similar errors in the past, 
> too): why does whitespace matter ?

From: Christopher Seiwald [mailto:seiwald_at_xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 2:42 PM
To: jamming_at_xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jamming] The Jam Annoyance FAQ

1.  Why white space is the only delimiter in jam?

        It was a _mistake_.  At the time ('93) whitespace in file names
        was very uncommon, but one platform critical to us was VMS.  
        You know, $sys$device:[user.jam]parse.c;3 VMS.

        I still think sparse quoting makes Jamfiles easy to read, but
        requiring whitespace around the ; is very error prone.

        If there is a compatible way of changing this without a "mode
        bit," I'm all ears.

- Volodya