[Boost-users] Labeling patched Boost versions

From: Daniel Krügler (dsp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-21 06:12:24

Hello,

Recently I had a discussion with a colleague concerning the possibility
to influence the resulting file names of the default boost output.
This discussion was actually inspired by the outcome of thread "[thread] 
Keeping leak detectors still..." on 2006-07-11 where we had the 
situation of an inofficial patch which we would like to use. The problem
is:

How can/should I signal a patched boost version?

According to the naming scheme described in

http://boost.org/more/getting_started.html

one could change the boost subminor version. Regrettably we found out 
that most programmers actually expect that such a number belongs to
one of the *official* boost versions provided by http://boost.org/,
(most probably because the naming scheme smoothly integrates).

Now I had the idea of an optional "build id", which is a well-known tool 
in many projects to signal a given state or "snap shot".
The very advantage of a build id - which's format is usually not fixed,
but typically is a string of numbers, letters and some file-name
compatible characters like '-', normally without any white spaces and of
arbitrary length - is, that it accentuates and differs very strongly
from the regular pattern of the subdivided version number.

Ideally it should be possible to define a kind of bjam constant, e.g

-sBUILD_ID=string

(I'm not a bjam expert and I hope that the above proposed name does not
violate any naming policies of such configuration parameters), which 
would allow to explicitly set build id for a bjam build. I have no 
strong opinion concerning the exact position of that build id in a lib 
name, but probably the most resonable one would be just after the 
version number, e.g.

libboost_date_time-gcc-mt-d-1_31_M20060721.a

for

-sBUILD_ID=M20060721

Does there already exist such a possibility to do that and if not:
I would really appreciate such a general available "callback" for 
injecting a build id (a sequence of characters) into the final
output. Standard behaviour would of course be, *not* to attach such id,
but the possibility to do that via a userdefined program parameter of
bjam would be fantastic! The problem is: If I would manually hack the
boost bjam files to do just this, I could never update to the next
boost version without fears, because I always would need to manipulate
the new version also. Since I assume that this request is of general
interest for the community I would like to humbly ask for support of it.

What do you think? Any chances for that idea? Or better ones?

Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Krügler