[Boost-users] Re: bjam options

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-08 09:09:24

"Samuel" <samuel_at_[hidden]> writes:

> I agree with the "nuclear engineer" that the "Getting Started"
> instructions are a little confusing, but I think it is at least as
> good as (for example) the instructions for MySQL.
>
> There are a few things that are not clear, and I will post separate
> messages for most of them. One little detail is that the the
> "Getting Started" instructions use double quotes in the examples of
> the bjam options, yet as best as I can determine, the double quotes
> don't work. In other words, the following does not work:
>
>     bjam "--help"
>
> And the following works:
>
>     bjam --help

They produce identical results for me.
What command shell are you using?  

This is not a function of the bjam executable, but the environment in
which it is invoked.  The command shell is supposed to strip the
quotes when invoking the executable.  If yours isn't doing that,
it should be considered buggy.  Try:

  bjam -f- "--help"
  ECHO $(ARGV) ;

Note space before ';'.  Enter an EOF in whatever way your environment
spells it (^D on Unix, ^z on Windoze...)
Post the output.

> It is true that there is an example showing the version that works,
> but I missed seeing it until I began writing this message and the
> other examples are confusing to the extent that they make it seem as
> if the double quotes are needed.
>
> So in other words, I don't understand why the double quotes are
> shown in the sample uses of bjam.

Because often arguments must contain spaces or other characters with
special meaning, such as '<' or '>':

 bjam "-sBUILD=<define>FOO"

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com