Re: [Boost-build] How to use configuration files (site-config.jam and user-config.jam)?

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] How to use configuration files (site-config.jam and user-config.jam)?
From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-08-29 10:03:53

On Saturday 29 August 2009 Boris Schaeling wrote:

> On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:26:12 +0200, Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Vladimir,
> 
> > [...]It seems to me that it might be reasonable to pre-assign ids of  
> > 'user-config'
> > to user-config.jam without requiring explicit 'project user-config' in  
> > there.
> 
> yes, exactly! If Boost.Build could do this (maybe checking if no explicit  
> project id is overridden) every project in the world using Boost.Build  
> could use standard names.
> 
> > It also seems reasonable to add some way of target inheritance, so you  
> > can
> > define
> >
> > 	searched-lib expat : .... ;
> >
> > and then define
> >
> > 	searched-lib ICU : ... ;
> >
> > in project-config.jam and then every Jamfile could refer to expat or
> > ICU without specifying exactly what config file the target is defined in.
> 
> This sounds perfect! But does searched-lib already exist? It seems though  
> although I can't find any documentation?

Boris,

Sorry for confusing you. 'searched-lib' exists today, but it's essentially
a more explicit spelling of 'lib' when you want to refer to system
libraries.

> 
> > But, I am not at all sure those ideas address your concerns above. Could
> > you clarify?
> 
> I'm trying to decouple a project's Jamfiles from configuration files (as I  
> think that's the idea of site-config.jam and user-config.jam). That's why  
> I don't want the configuration files to define certain project ids as  
> another project might want to use other project ids later. As I never  
> heard of searched-lib I had to use a project id though to refer to rules  
> in configuration files. With searched-lib I don't need predefined project  
> ids anymore but they might still be handy.

I think I'm likely to implement the functionality to look in all config
files for target named 'XXX' first, since I need that to improve
Boost configuration for 1.41.

- Volodya