Re: [Boost-build] discovering libraries with boost at build time

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] discovering libraries with boost at build time
From: John Maddock (boost.regex_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-07-12 11:41:44

>> Of course it would be easier if this was all wrapped in in some kind of
>> autoconf emulation layer....
>
> Of course, I can add some higher-level wrapper. However, an important
> question
> is whether we want to try linking against the found library, or not.
> autoconf, I believe, generally tries to link. CMake, on the other hand,
> basically searches for a file in some locations and that it -- it does not
> try linking. Which behaviour seems more useful?

Hi Vladimir,

I'm not sure which behavior is better, but I have an autoconf like emulation
layer almost working (just the equivalent of ac_try_compile at present, but
link and run and the other stuff should be trivial layers on top of that).
One thing I missed was the ability to specify the message that
check-target-builds prints out.  I can work around that by defining an alias
for the target to check that has a "long descriptive name with spaces in
it", but it would be better (safer?) to have a property that
check-target-builds uses for the name, falling back on the target name if
none is provided.   If you're amenable to that, I think I can provide a
patch if it helps...

Another stumbling block I've hacked around at present, is the automatic
generation of unique file names.  What I really need is either:

* Regex like search and replace on a string, so I can turn a description
into a file name.  Or..
* Some way to generate a unique name for each instance of a rule being
called.

Any ideas?

Thanks, John.