Re: [Boost-cmake] Variant Builds and missing libraries

Subject: Re: [Boost-cmake] Variant Builds and missing libraries
From: Michael Jackson (mike.jackson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-26 09:25:44

On Nov 13, 2008, at 12:31 PM, Vladimir Prus wrote:

> Michael Jackson wrote:
>
>>
>> On Nov 12, 2008, at 11:39 AM, David Abrahams wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> on Wed Nov 12 2008, Michael Jackson <mike.jackson-AT-bluequartz.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Came across an interesting situation while doing some testing on  
>>>> the
>>>> CMake build system. I configured my build tree to be SHARED+MULTI-
>>>> THREADED+DEBUG. When I built I was almost immediately getting an
>>>> error
>>>> about not being able to link against boost_test_exec_monitor-mt-
>>>> shared. Which is wrong because test_exec_monitor is a static-only
>>>> library. As I walked through the CMake code to track down what was
>>>> the
>>>> problem I basically discovered for myself that if you have
>>>> BUILD_STATIC=OFF then NO static libraries will be built, which has
>>>> the
>>>> side effect of disabling any regression test that relies on the
>>>> test_exec_monitor.
>>>>
>>>>  Question: Is this desired behavior? (I wouldn't think so but I
>>>> would rather hear that from a boost dev)
>>>
>>> Well, you'd need a Boost-CMake dev, of which there are few, to tell
>>> you
>>> what BUILD_STATIC=OFF is supposed to mean.  However, my guess is  
>>> that
>>> it's really for deciding which library variants you're going to  
>>> build
>>> and install, not what can get built as part of a dependency chain.
>>> Frankly, even in the build/install case, it seems implausible that
>>> people could be unhappy when a static-only library is built  
>>> statically
>>> when the shared variant is requested.  I would err on the side of
>>> building rather than not building, and let people use --without-
>>> libname
>>> or whatever its CMake equivalent is if they want to leave it out.
>>
>> I chatted with Volodya on the #boost irc channel and basically if you
>> are doing regression testing then all the variants are built.
>
> Err, I did not say that. I said that Boost.Build does not need any  
> up-front
> build of anything -- if you want to run regressions with specific  
> properties,
> it will build all that's needed.
>
> - Volodya
>
>

That was my basic interpretation. Basically, if you are building the  
regression tests then you will need all the variants because at some  
point all the variants are most likely used.

I can start putting logic into the cmake files to make sure the proper  
variants are built but it is just easier to build all of them if you  
are going to be running tests. I am interested to hear all the  
arguments either way.

_________________________________________________________
Mike Jackson                  mike.jackson_at_[hidden]
             www.bluequartz.net