Re: [Boost-build] naive usage of bootstrap.sh

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] naive usage of bootstrap.sh
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir.prus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-24 15:19:49

Stefan,

On 24-Oct-16 6:31 PM, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> On 24.10.2016 10:56, Vladimir Prus wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 24-Oct-16 5:40 PM, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>>> On 23.10.2016 15:55, Robert Ramey wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>> Which looks quite wrong to me.  I expect bootstrap.sh to build some
>>>> boost tools not include things like --show-libraries , without-icu
>>>> etc. I'm now totally confused as to what bootstrap.sh is supposed to
>>>> do.
>>>
>>> I entirely agree. I originally was very confused as it wasn't clear what
>>> that script's job was, but eventually I just got used to it and started
>>> ignoring it.
>>> However, I still think this is wrong, and I entirely agree with Robert
>>> that "bootstrap.sh" should do nothing but prepare the build tool itself,
>>> so all the build-specific parameters should then be added to the
>>> invocation of 'bjam' (or 'b2' or whatever the name of the day is).
>>
>> The current behaviour is not quite arbitrary either - it was originally
>> made to help people who like to pass some values to configure script,
>> and make those values stick. It may be easier to skip that and just
>> instruct to read project-config.jam and modify to taste, but I'm sure
>> others will complain just as loudly :-(
>
> At the very least I think bootstrap.sh should not accept options such as
> --with... or --without...

Why? Again, maybe nobody cares any longer, but I think it was requested
by some folks some time ago? Could you suggest a criteria which options
should be accepted and which not?

If bootstrap.sh is made to accept no options, to to pass all options to 
b2, then we'd have too add an option to b2 to save the passed options
for future use.

> I think it would also help if bootstrap.sh would print out a message
> explaining that it generated project-config.jam, in addition to bjam/b2.

Yes, it can be added.

>>> Perhaps relatedly: I noticed on my laptop that `bjam` (as installed from
>>> system package "boost-build") would ignore the 'BOOST_BUILD_PATH'
>>> variable. Perhaps 'bootstrap.sh' causes the bjam / b2 executable to have
>>> certain values hard-coded / compiled in, and that such command-line
>>> options as '--prefix' will thus affect which values that are ?
>>> That ought to be documented, at the very least !
>>
>> No, bootstrap.sh does not hardcode any values; it only sets up
>> project-config.jam. If you system boost-build package does not work,
>> it's veyr likely because it's some very old version.
>>
>
> `bjam -v` reports "Boost.Jam  Version 2015.07. OS=LINUX.", and was
> installed pas part of the boost-jam-1.60.0-7.fc24.x86_64 package, thus
> is actually fairly recent. (I had some local modifications to
> boost.build that I wanted to try out, but wan't able to point bjam at my
> version of Boost.Build; it insisted on using the one it was installed with.)

That is strange; does running with --debug-configuration report 
anything? BOOST_BUILD_PATH, if it's actually set in environment,
is searched before anything else.

-- 
Vladimir Prus
https://vladimirprus.com