Re: [Boost-users] Mingw: build, install, .LIB files and boost-config?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Mingw: build, install, .LIB files and boost-config?
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-01-29 06:06:41

John Pye wrote:

> Hi all
> 
> While I'm aware that MinGW is not one of the 'primary' platforms for
> MinGW, I wanted to ask a few questions to help me in the task of
> building a binary copy of Boost for this platform that's as good as it
> can be.
> 
> Firstly, what would be the correct build commands to build Boost for
> MinGW such that I end up with both shared libraries and static
> libraries? What I've worked out so far is shown here:
> http://ascendwiki.cheme.cmu.edu/Binary_installer_for_Boost_on_MinGW

The expected commands are:

        ./bootstrap.sh
        ./bjam

assuming that you use msys shell, bootstrap.bat in cmd.exe shell. This is
for 1.41.

> Secondly, to install Boost at an arbitrary path under MinGW, what is the
> correct BJAM command? On MinGW, I'm not running ./configure, so the
> suggestions from the Unix build documentation don't make sense. By
> default under MinGW, if I run "bjam install", my files end up in
> c:\Boost but I'd like too have another target directory, so that it's
> possible to build even without write privileges to that folder. Is there
> such a thing as "bjam --install-prefix=c:/MinGW install"? Is there a way
> to strip out all the redundant folder levels like "release" and
> "gcc-mingw-3.4.5" etc?

Uhm, 'configure'? I suggest you use current Boost, like 1.41, that does not
have that thing at all. Anyway, the answer to your question is inside
the output of 'bjam --help'

> Third, using BJAM on MinGW results in .LIB files being generated. These
> .LIB files are NOT correctly names for use with MinGW. As far as I can
> tell, I have to rename them as .A files, or else do something else with
> them so that they'll correctly be detected by the the GCC "-l" linker flag.

Please use SVN HEAD (or 1.42 beta)
 
> Finally, there was a bit of discussion on the mailing list about a year
> ago about providing a "boost-config" script. With the ever-changing
> naming conventions for Boost libs, and the possible presence of static
> libraries, shared libraries, -mt, -d, and other file suffixes, such a
> script would be INVALUABLE for people looking to access pre-built Boost
> binaries for their projects. It would be an almost trivial task to
> implement such a script -- has there been any progress on this anywhere?

I am afraid nobody has ever provided a *specification* for such a script.
Presumably, because it's less trivial than originally though. Can you provide
a spec?

- Volodya