Re: [Boost-users] Troubling building Boost for Borland C++ Builder 6

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-07-22 22:46:31

David Abrahams wrote:
> Edward Diener <eddielee_at_[hidden]> writes:
> 
> 
>>>All I can say it that this has worked from me as well as the testers in our 
>>>matrix.
>>
>>I have discovered the reason for the problem. It has to do with the form of 
>>#include in the Spirit 1.6x headers. The headers erroneously use, in some 
>>places, the form:
>>
>>#include "boost/..."
>>
>>rather than
>>
>>#include <boost/...>
> 
> 
> It's not "erroneously" exactly.  Whether to include with quotes or
> angles has been a source of contention among Boost developers and
> there has been no agreement.  I am in the latter camp, myself, but
> others seem to thing that the former is the only correct way.

One I changed the include for the Spirit 1.6.2 headers to use angles instead of 
quotes, the build worked correctly as expected.

In the case of Boost, the only reason to use the former would be if one were 
specifically compiling from the Boost root directory and did not include the 
root directory in the compiler's path. I think this is a pretty rare case for 
using quotes. Whereas it kills the use of an alternative version of a library, 
in a separate directory, for a particular compiler, such as Spirit 1.6.2 for 
Borland while one uses the Boost directory for other libraries.

I think it is "erroneous" in the sense that it is not needed since one can 
always add the Boost root directory to the include path. Also the latest Spirit 
uses all angle brackets and not quotes, so they must have realized the 
importance of doing so themselves.

I think the Boost source and header files should always use angle brackets for 
all Boost headers, and the bug in correctly building the serialization libraries 
for Borland is a good example why. Not that every test suite can be totally 
thorough, but this situation, of building serialization by using SPIRIT_ROOT to 
point to a Spirit distribution outside the Boost tree, was very probably never 
tested else it would have been discovered previously.