[Boost-users] Newbie: Building boost with Visual Studio 2008

Subject: [Boost-users] Newbie: Building boost with Visual Studio 2008
From: David Aldrich (David.Aldrich_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-07-07 06:55:48

Hi

I have a question about building boost 1.43 with Visual Studio 2008. I have performed the following steps:

1) Downloaded and extracted boost_1_43_0.zip to C:\boost_1_43_0.
2) Built bjam (using tools\jam\src\build.bat).
3) Ran bjam in C:\boost_1_43_0

bjam ran successfully but the resulting tree contains .obj files but not all .lib files (for example, the RegEx libs are missing).

I then ran:

bjam.exe install

This created folder c:\Boost, which does contain all the libraries and successfully links with the RegEx example program in 'boost: Getting Started on Windows'.

That article ('boost: Getting Started on Windows') does not specify that I should run bjam install.  Why was 'install' necessary in my case?

Now I do not know whether to use C:\boost_1_43_0, which contains the headers and documentation, or C:\Boost, which contains the headers and libraries, as boost root. Obviously, if I choose the former, I need to fix it's build process. I want a solution that I can recommend to our development team. Please can someone advise me what is best practice?

Best regards

David