Re: [Boost-users] Installed library names

From: Jeffrey A. Edlund (jedlund_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-21 15:36:33

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:19:00 -0400
Yang Zhang <yanghatespam_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Hi, I'm working with a project whose build system passes 
> -lboost_serialization as a flag to gcc.  As far as I can tell from the 
> configure options and from the Getting Started documentation, boost's 
> installer only ever uses fully qualified names 
> (libboost_serialization-gcc41-mt-1_35.so.1.35.0 on my system).  Could 
> the installer have possibly provided a libboost_serialization.so as 
> well?  Or did the authors of the project I'm trying to build probably 
> manually create symlinks (or have their package manager create these) 
> and assume that I would have the same?  Thanks!

I ran into this problem as well.  I'm using bjam and boost build for my project and I'm not sure how to get bjam to detect the various boost versions/compiler types.  For development I've been installing boost in my home directory like this:

./configure --prefix=/home/USERNAME/local/stow/boost-rREVISIONNUMBER

I then edit the generated Makefile to add --layout=system to the BJAM_CONFIG line. This removes the compiler and boost version mangling. I also use the --build-type=complete option to tell the build system to build all the possible combinations of shared/static debug/release mt/st.

Here's the line that i have near the top of the Makefile:

BJAM_CONFIG= --layout=system --build-type=complete

I suppose for completeness I should add that I then run 'stow boost-rREVISIONNUMBER' from /home/USERNAME/local/stow to "stow" the files into /home/USERNAME/local.  I also have the following environment variables set in my .bashrc:

# Home directory installation setup
export PATH=$HOME/bin:$HOME/local/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/local/lib
export LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/local/lib/pkgconfig

Boost of course doesn't install any executable files and doesn't use pkg-config, so you don't need to change the PATH or set PKG_CONFIG_PATH.  

I suppose that a better solution would be to write a script to make the desired symbolic links or better yet have boost use something like pkg-config.

Jeffrey