What is a staged boost library? - c++

While trying to build the thrift c++ library, I came across the following error after specifying the --with-boost option.
If you have a staged boost library (still not installed) please
specify $BOOST_ROOT in your environment and do not give a PATH to
--with-boost option.
I looked through the boost documentation (which is I am not overly familiar with), but I did not find a good definition for the term staged boost library. I see the parenthetical (still not installed), but there are many states that are a library can be in that fall under the category of not installed.
When I first download boost, I run ./bootstrap and ./b2 to compile it.
Is it staged at this point? Or do I have to do something else to make it staged?

You can call
b2 --help
to see options of Boost.Build, and there you can find
install Install headers and compiled library files to the
======= configured locations (below).
...
stage Build and install only compiled library files to the
===== stage directory.
The declaration of stage or install specifies whether the Boost Libraries are installed in a subfolder named stage or system-wide. The meaning of system-wide depends on the operating system. In Windows, the target directory is c:\boost, in Linux it is /usr/local. The target directory can also be explicitly specified using the -–prefix option. Also see this answer, I guess it will be helpful.
For more informations see Getting Started Guide for Windows or Linux.

When you run .\b2 to compile Boost, it create a folder called stage and output of the compilation is put inside %BOOST_ROOT%\stage\lib folder. Now you can copy this lib folder somewhere and add that in to linker's path. However some projects might expect binaries to be available at stage\lib. So "staged" here means if you have libraries compiled and present in stage\lib folder. The .b2 command takes several different parameters to compile different kids of binaries, for example, below compiles binaries that are linked to shared runtime and targeting x64 architecture:
b2 variant=debug,release link=shared runtime-link=shared address-model=64
Each variant of lib file name has tags so they don't overwrite each other, for example, libboost_date_time-vc140-mt-gd-1_62.lib.

Related

Building libtorrent with openssl with BJam

I am trying to build libtorrent (http://www.libtorrent.org/) using the provided jamfile. If I try to build it in its vanilla state everything goes well. I am then building using this command:
bjam msvc-12.0 boost=source
However I want to build it with OpenSSL which there seem to be support for. This is where I run into problems. Most likely because it is the first time I use Bjam (actually anything else than make files). I now try to run the following command:
bjam msvc-12.0 boost=source encryption=openssl
Now the compiler starts to complain about not finding the OpenSSL include files.
So I guess I have to include this path in the JAM file. But I have no idea where.
I also tried to add the path into the INCLUDE environment varaible in windows but that doesn't seem to be picked up by BJAM or msvc. Any suggestions?
My understanding of how this is normally done on windows is by installing libraries and headers into visual studio's include and lib folders.
(That's how I install openssl on windows at least).
The jamfile is also supposed to pick up CXXFLAGS and LDFLAGS environment variables, which you could use to introduce the library- and include paths. However, it only does this when boost=system is specified, i.e. you're building against "system" boost libraries instead of from source.

How to compile Boost.Process library?

So there is Boost.Process 2006, Boost.Process 2008 and most recent Boost.Process seems like 2009 by looking at sources) I need some kind of step by step guidance on how to compile that beast. Because I deffenetly do not get how to do such thing.
So For generall official Boost I understand what shall be done
With out administration privileges:
Download latest Boost release.
Unpack, extract downloaded content into some folder.
Open that folder in terminal (for example you ca open 'cmd' or 'terminal' an use command like cd absolute/path/to/directory/with/extracted/Boost than use command to show folder contents ls on Unix like OS (Mac, Linux) and dir on Windows - in output you should be capable to find boost-build.jam )
Create two folders (using command like mkdir foldername ) build-dir and install-dir
run command ./booststrap (booststrap.sh or booststrap.bat on windows)
now we can compile Boost and install it with ./bjam -j4 link=static threading=single,multi --builddir=./build-dir install --without-mpi --prefix=./install-dir
Such call will compile static libraries of Boost into build-dir. (you probably will not be capable to use Boost out from there - there will be no includes headers and a really big directories hierarchy )
Than bjam will create for us "installation" of Boost into install-dir - there will appear folder with all boost libs (static version) and includes folder with all of boost headers.
We set -j4 flag to compile on 4 cores. use -jN where N is number of desired cores to be used during compilation process.
We set --without-mpi flag because we probably do not use it.
But having Real Boost unpacked, compiled, installed in dir A (bjam is in folder B ) Having Boost.Process Download , Unpacked and Extracted to folder C how to compile any of that 3 Boost.Process releases (with out administration privileges)?
I did this once or twice and here's what I remember:
After downloading boost libs e.g. from the sandbox, unpack the lib onto the drive like you said e.g to folder C. If you open the C folder, it generally has the same folder structure as the rest of the boost source. At least this was the case in the limited libraries I tried.
From there copy the individual files and folders inside the extracted source folder into the corresponding folders in the boost source.
E.g. in the case of process
- copy C/boost/process.hpp and C/boost/process/ to boost_src_dir/boost/
- copy C/libs/process/ to boost_src_dir/libs/.
From there execute bjam (assuming the bjam executable is on your path) again in the boost root and that in my cases built everything including the new library. I remember doing this with boost log and process and can't think of having to do anything else.
The downside to doing this is that everything gets recompiled. Perhaps someone else has a better method of doing this.
As for the admin priviledges, they shouldn't matter since you're building boost in the same manner that you built the original version.

Boost libraries - build only what I need

I downloaded the Boost libraries and now I want to build only a few of the libraries. What would be the right command for this? Apparently the build-type=complete option gives me too much.
I am using Windows XP and want to use Bjam to compile Boost and MinGW to finally use it. At the moment I think I need the libraries Boost.filesystem, Boost.ProgramOptions and Boost.System.
Another question: Where do I put the header-only libraries?
In step 5.2.4 of Getting Started you can instruct b2 which libraries to build:
./b2 --with-program_options --with-filesystem --with-system
Alternatively, use ./b2 --show-libraries to see a list of all libraries that are not header-only.
Following is an excerpt from the page:
In particular, to limit the amount of time spent building, you may be interested in:
reviewing the list of library names with --show-libraries
limiting which libraries get built with the --with-<library-name> or --without-<library-name> options
choosing a specific build variant by adding release or debug to the command line.
Note: b2 command depends upon boost version so use following commands as per your boost version(Also, in this case use --with-libraries=<comma-seperated-library-names> version instead of --with-<library-name>):
./configure for 1.38.0 and earlier
./bootstrap.sh for 1.39.0 onwards till 1.46.0
These answers didn't work for me. On Windows, this worked for me:
b2.exe --with-LIBRARY
For example,
b2.exe --with-test
The BCP utility is a tool for extracting subsets of Boost. It's useful for Boost authors who want to distribute their library separately from Boost, and for Boost users who want to distribute a subset of Boost with their application.
The current version of Boost (1.50.0) uses Boost.Build. The new workflow for building BCP is as follows:
From the root Boost directory, type:
bootstrap.bat
Then, once Boost.Build has been built, type:
b2 tools/bcp
To extract, for example interprocess only, you could use:
$ mkdir /tmp/interprocess #bcp needs this
$ bcp interprocess /tmp/interprocess
This copies interprocess and its dependencies to /tmp/interprocess.
I had the same problem. But I found a way to create the necessary files.
Steps to follow:
If you have Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 then open the Microsoft Visual Studio command prompt (2010) in administrator mode.
First enter the code:
bootstrap.bat
Then enter the following code to generate lib files:
b2.exe link=static runtime-link=static --with-chrono --with-date_time --with-filesystem --with-program_options --with-system --toolset=msvc-10.0 define=BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION=0x0500
Library files will be created in stage folder.
My last build attempt for the Boost 1.55 libraries was a dissappointment. All attempts to build several libraries and only them has ended up with total mess in output.
BJam either tries to build everything or build only the requested, but in the "bin.v2/[long-random-path]" folders (library per directory) with crap in them which is a headache to copy only the link libraries to somethere else.
I have accidentally found the right way to build-and-collect only the libraries I want in one place without any other crap:
bjam ... --with-[library1] --with-[library2] stage
the "stage" option is required to build and collect libraries in one folder: /stage/lib
the "--with-[library]" option is required to build only the library you want.
An additional note for anyone who sees the error message:
"error: wrong library name '<name of library>' in the --with-<library> option.".
If you try to be clever, as I did, and only extract the boost sub-directory of the download onto your system to minimise space, b2 will not be able to find the source code and build options for those libraries that are not header-only. I.e. you need the lib sub-directory too (and tools).

Building a subset of boost in windows

I'm trying setup a subset of boost and get it properly compiled using bjam, however I'm not getting the result I'm looking for. I'm working on windows using boost 1.37.0.
Let's say I want the libraries smart_ptr and filesystem built/installed. I intentionally chose a header only library and one library needing to compile a library. I want them to be built into a directory structure similar to the one I would get if I built a complete boost installation with bjam (i.e not specifying any --with-libraryX) but of course without all the libraries I'm not interested in.
My first approach was to use the --with-filesystem --with-smart_ptr in bjam, however it seemed like it didn't recognize smart_ptr (I tried smartptr and smart-ptr without success). I guess this is because it's a header only library.
When I removed it and only had --with-filesystem it seemed to copy ALL libraries header files to the install path and only build the libraries for filesystem. The library building behavior was the one I hoped for, but I got tons of header files for libraries I'm not interested in installed in my boost directory.
My second approach was to use bcp to copy the relevant projects. This did work out in the sense that I only got the projects I cared about (and their dependencies). However they didn't provide any make files for building the libraries that was copied. This means I would need to setup projects files for all the libraries that are not header only and manually build them.
So my question is basically, is there a way of selectively building boost that only copies the headers for the libraries I'm interested in and only building library files for the non header only libraries I'm interested in (and the boost libraries they are dependent on course)?
There are probably tons of manual/scripting based solutions for this, but if I could get something running only using bjam would be way more useful for me since adding new libraries or upgrading to a new boost version would be very simple.
EDIT:
Added the complete command line for the first approach:
bjam install --prefix=c:\temp\boostsmall
--build-dir=C:\temp\boostsmalltemp --layout=system
--with-filesystem variant=debug link=static threading=multi
runtime-link=static
Changed scoped_ptr to smart_ptr
Solved it.
The bcp solution had make files for the projects, however I needed to copy the tools directory and the root of the boost directory to the place I copied all my libs to get things up running.
Great question! This is an issue I have recently managed to figure out, I think.
I already had the full Boost libraries installed, including the ones requiring separate compilation.
I managed to create a subset of the Boost libraries (regex) for a particular application I was working on using the following steps:
First ensure the bcp executable is installed in the first place. In your Boost root folder, navigate to the tools/bcp folder and run the bjam.exe in here. For me this created the bcp executable in [Boost path]\bin.v2\tools\bcp\msvc-10.0\release\link-static directory:
Then create the folder where you would like the Boost subset to reside. This might already be a folder for a Visual Studio project you are working on.
Run the bcp exectubale you created, making sure to include the libraries you wish to include, as well as the location of the boost root directory and the destination folder. Observe how the required Boost components (eg for regex) have been included in your destination folder.
bcp.exe regex --boost="C:\Program Files\boost_1_55_0\boost_1_55_0" C:\Projects\RegexProject\BoostLite
In your Visual Studio project set the Additional Include Directories and Libraries to point to the 'Boost lite' folder that was created.
One final thing - which I think is described previously - I needed to go to my regular Boost folder setup and copy the required stage/lib folder containing all the lib files needed for the subset version and copy them here, just a few regex-related lib files in my case.
I found that this worked for me. Any feedback from other persons experiences would be appreciated.
A blog posting describing the same thing can be found here.

Boost 1.37 pre-built for MSVC

I can't find a pre-built set of MSVC++ libs for Boost 1.37.0, only the source. I don't understand how their weird build system works... are there any places I can find a download of a visual studio project or something?
The BoostPro Computing folks maintain the Boost installer for Windows but it usually take a few weeks for them to put new versions online. It's not yet up for 1.37.
There's no Visual Studio solution (remember, Boost targets many platforms) though there is an effort to also support building Boost with CMake. I'm not sure how far along they got for 1.37 but I believe it's still early days for this process.
However the standard build system isn't that weird! Start by downloading bjam for your platform (look for a suffix of 'ntx86' for Windows) and installing it somewhere in your path (C:/Windows/System32). Then download the source, uncompress it and run the build system from the command line. It'll look something like this for Visual Studio users:
bjam --build-dir="C:\boostsource" --toolset=msvc --build-type=complete stage
This is lifted pretty much from the Getting Started Guide which goes into much more detail. The build-dir is not needed if you're current directory is the root of the source.
After waiting a couple of hours for everything to build ('complete' means that it'll build debug, release, single/multi threaded, static/dynamic, static/dynamic linking to the runtimes - and combinations) you'll end up with all of the libs in a 'stage/lib' directory.
Finally you need to tell Visual Studio where to find the headers and libs. Go to Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->VC++ Directories. Add an entry for "Include files" (like "C:\boostsource"). Add an entry for "Library files" ("C:\boostsource\stage\lib").
I've got a build of 1.37 (VC 7.1, 8, 9) on my website, help yourself.
http://boost.teeks99.com/
(Update... 1.38 is up there as well)
(Another Update, 1.39 is now there)
(1.40 is up)
(1.41 is up, a bit late)
It seems complicated, but building Boost is really not that bad. First you need to download the bjam tool (SourceForge is a good source). Make sure bjam.exe is in a directory in your PATH.
Go the the root of your unzipped Boost download (e.g. C:\Boost_1_37_0)
Type bjam --help to get a list of all your build options.
I use the following command to build everything, you can customize it to suit your needs:
bjam --prefix=C:\boost --build-dir=C:\build --build-type=complete install
The results will be placed in C:\boost and you can delete C:\build.
Building it isn't difficult.
They have a fairly good expanaltion of the default process here:
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_37_0/more/getting_started/windows.html#or-build-binaries-from-source
Download bjam (from sourceforge, there are links from the boost website), as well as the boost sources, make sure bjam is accessible from the boost dir, cd to the boost dir, and run something like the following:
bjam --build-dir= --prefix-dir= --toolset=msvc --build-type=complete install
where is an temp dir where it can store intermediate files, and is the final install location. There are all sorts of other options you can play around with, and not all of them are documented very well, but the basics are fairly simple.
For more help, you can run bjam --help from the boost source dir.