Re: [Boost-users] Boost 1.68.0 contains only python 3.7 library, no python 2.7 library?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Boost 1.68.0 contains only python 3.7 library, no python 2.7 library?
From: Tom Kent (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-11-10 23:08:04

On Fri, Nov 9, 2018 at 12:54 AM Heng Zhou via Boost-users <
boost-users_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I installed Boost 1.68.0 recently from Windows x64 pre-compiled binary
> "boost_1_68_0-msvc-14.0-64.exe" downloaded from
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/1.68.0/
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__sourceforge.net_projects_boost_files_boost-2Dbinaries_1.68.0_&d=DwMFaQ&c=Ngd-ta5yRYsqeUsEDgxhcqsYYY1Xs5ogLxWPA_2Wlc4&r=uu0095bHyY4u8_4aL_8VSkoBAibccyzY1AWGIZA2kCM&m=cMxoVBp9aAfrFPQFs7HeHNCcnjbvOBsZay8H_qt80Ms&s=Z170hlPZgPTo9kamr5O2JB7PcGOkfoLyrIZ4VPMQ8_U&e=>.
> Then, I noticed that this version of Boost contains only python 3.7
> library because the filenames under C:\local\boost_1_68_0\lib64-msvc-14.0
> are only boost_python37-vc140-mt-.... This caused errors from building a
> third-party library which tries to link Boost python 2.7 library (i.e.,
> tries to find file boost_python27-vc140-mt-...) . So what is matter? Does
> Boost decide to stop supporting python 2.7 since version 1.68.0, or is
> Boost python 2.7 library located somewhere else using some
> hard-to-recognize filename? I'm using Windows 10, VS2015 and have only
> python 2.7 installed. Thank you for your help with this issue.
>

That is by design. On windows boost can only support one version of python
at a time. Since python 2.x is end-of-life and only going to be supported
for another 14 months I thought it would be better to default to python 3
going forward. It was discussed in this thread:
https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2018/07/242443.php

You can still use other versions of python with boost, but you'll just have
to build the boost::python library yourself.
https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/more/getting_started/windows.html#prepare-to-use-a-boost-library-binary

Tom