Re: [Boost-users] Complaint about Current Boost Build System

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-24 01:47:44

Hi Freddie,

> Sorry for this e-mail, since it is more of a complaint. But I do feel
> the urge to raise this problem to the community so that some solution
> could be derived soon.
> 
> The current build system (1.33/34 from CVS) creates subdirectories for
> each variant/ subvariant specified in the BUILD environment. When more
> user customizations are specified, the consequence of this is very deep
> directory structures.
> 
> Nonetheless, some OSes imposes stringent limits on how long a path can
> go (e.g., Win2k/XP limits a path name to be 259 characters long
> maximum). There causes big problem with the building system when error
> can occur from nowhere in Boost source code itself. This constraint
> effectively limits how much customization a user can make (e.g., I had
> to remove some additional optimization/ tuning parameters for
> subvariants, and SUBST'ed the Boost directory in order to reduce the
> path name length).
> 
> So my question is, why can we not be smarter in this to derive
> alternatives to make the directory structure shallower (or, simply
> reduce the length of the names of each subvariant directory)?

We can be smarter, but this requires somebody who is bothered by this
problem enough to put some work into this. Like:

  - Implement smarter scheme
  - Produce a complete spec how smarter scheme should work
  - Give some ideas how smarter scheme should work

I think it's possible to improve matter, at least for Boost.Build V2, but
that requires at least some help. If you would like to help, join us at
Boost.Build mailing list:

  http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-build

Thanks in advance,
Volodya