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

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Mingw: build, install, .LIB files and boost-config?
From: André Prins (a.h.prins_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-01-29 06:23:31

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Vladimir Prus
<vladimir_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 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.

You do not really need MSYS for building Boost with MinGW, provided
gcc (and not Visual Studio) is available in you path. Bootstrap will
then automatically build a bjam.exe for you. If not, you can always
build it manually (call "build.bat gcc" in tools\jam\src and then use
the resulting bjam.exe in tools\jam\src\bin.ntx86).

>
>> 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'
I fully agree with bjam --help. It provides all the information you
need. As an additional example: When I build my Boost-version (a
shared, debug one with MinGW), I simply call bjam as follows:

bjam
  "--build-dir=C:\Development\Temp\Boost-install\Boost_build_1.41\Shared_Debug"
  "--prefix=C:\Development\Boost-install\install\Boost_1.41\Shared_Debug"
  "--layout=versioned"
  "link=shared"
  "variant=debug"
  "toolset=gcc"
  "threading=multi"
  "runtime-link=shared"
  install

Note the --build-dir ánd the --prefix commands, specifying
respectively the locations of the intermediate object-files and the
final installation-files. The options link, variant, toolset,
threading and runtime specify that I want a very specific build of
Boost, but I can imagine that you want something else.

>
>> 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)
>

The result of the previous bjam install is a Boost-install-dir with a
lib-directory containing .lib and .dll files and an include-directory
containing the .h files. I do nót need to rename those .lib files to
.a files with MinGW, but perhaps because I use CMake for building my
own projects. A "find_package( Boost )" with a predefined "BOOST_ROOT"
variable is sufficient to find all the libraries that I need.

>> 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
>
I think the find_boost.cmake in CMake comes close to such a script.

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