installing boost libs for dependant apps

From: Michael Hunley (mhunley_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-07 16:15:07

I just completed porting our server from XP to Linux, which uses 
Boost::Thread for the threading library.  I found it was infinitely more 
convenient to publish the libs in their various formats 
(variant|sub-variant) into a common, top-level folder under 
BOOST_ROOT.  This made it much more managable to both link it into my 
application (without having to grist the folder name) and add the proper 
path to my LD_LIBRARY_PATH env var so it could find the shared libraries 
when I ran.  I don't know if there is a prescribed way of doing this 
already in place, but I did not see anything in the build documentation 
(like bjam "Install [folder]" or some such).  I ended up modifying the 
BOOST_ROOT/Jamfile to have a stage target that published all the threading 
libs to BOOST_ROOT/bin with proper suffixes for the variants I cared about 
(debug and release for the moment).  I still had to append the proper 
suffixes in my own Jamfile (I used BJam for my make as well), but it was a 
heck of a lot better than a 10 deep folder hierarchy.  I have a couple of 
question and two requests.  For reference I am using a cut from CVS around 
2/6/2003.

How are others doing this sort of thing that are using Boost?
Is there a common way to do what I did by doctoring the Jamfile that is 
less invasive (so I don't have to repeat in the future when I get releases 
from CVS)?  I am new to Linux & Boost, so may not know how I should be 
getting at these things.

My request, if the answers to the above don't address them, is that some 
form of install or publish to a common location be added to the boost 
build.  If I were more intimately familiar with Boost and the build system 
(and the various installation platforms) I would volunteer to help, but...

My second request may also already be possible, but my limited experiment 
and reading made it seem not.  I'd like to be able to declare a sub-project 
that points to a whole other boost-build.jam hierarchy; e.g. I want to make 
Boost a sub-project of mine.  This seems much more plausible and likely in 
the new versoin 2 format where the dependency declarations are more 
straight-forward (by name, not explicit path).

I await your feedback. Thanks.
michael