Re: [Boost-build] RFC: Rootless projects..

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] RFC: Rootless projects..
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir.prus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-06-16 10:41:14

On 6/11/2015 5:13 PM, Rene Rivera wrote:
> The use case is one that I've run into since the git transition and doing Predef development. And recently I
> also see it in the BPL development. For Predef my normal way to work on it is to clone *only* the Predef repo as
> it's an entirely standalone library (doesn't depend on anything). Then I have a jamroot file above the cloned
> Predef, as it's required to build anything with BBv2. It's easy enough for me to do this of course. But I would
> like to make it easier for *users* to just get the Predef library and say, run tests and build without special
> instructions or having the whole of the Boost super project. But at the same time I can't just include a jamroot
> in the Predef project because it would break (in silent and strange ways) when it's part of the Boost super project.

Rene,

could you describe in more detail how you envision this feature to be used? While predef is entirely standalone,
that does not appear to be a typical case, so I think we need to decide how a typical case should work, and
optimize for that case.

Say, a Boost library can be built either inside the tree, or outside the tree. In the former cases, it 
automatically gets access to:

- Requirements from Boost's Jamroot
- constants
- helper functions

In the standalone case, how would a library access all that?

Thanks,
Volodya