Building Boost Libraries

Introduction
Preliminaries
Building Boost Libraries
Configuring the tools
Supported Toolsets
Boost.Jam executable

Introduction

These instructions explain how to accomplish common tasks using Boost.Build, the Boost Build System. The build system uses Boost.Jam, an extension of the Perforce Jam portable make replacement.

For tasks not covered here, see the full build system documentation.

Note that many Boost libraries are implemented entirely within their headers, and so can be used without building object libraries. Libraries that do require building object libraries first include the Python, Regex, Signal, and Threads libraries.

Preliminaries

• Download Boost, and unpack the full directory structure into some root directory.
• Install the Boost.Jam executable if needed. Pre-builts are available from SourceForge. Make sure it's in your path. (Note: Boost requires an enhanced version of Jam; the basic version won't work.)
• Configure the command-line toolset(s) you intend to use. It might be a good idea to verify your command line compiler is working if you don't use it regularly.
• Optional: configure the boost source code. This step should not be required on the vast majority of platforms, but if you're trying to build boost on an untested or unsupported platform it may be necessary.
• Optional: if you intend to build the Boost.Python library, set environment variables to configure Boost.Build for your Python installation. For more information, see these instructions. If you leave this step out, Boost.Build will print a message about how to do it, and will skip the build for Boost.Python.
• Optional: if you intend to build the boost Regex library, with either Visual C++ or Borland C++, then there are makefiles that will generally give better results.

Building Boost Libraries

Using your operating system's command line interpreter, execute the following steps. The sample commands given will work for both UNIX and Windows.

• Change to the Boost root directory. (The directory you unpacked the distribution into; unless you changed it, the name will be boost_n_n_n where n_n_n is the release number. Among others files, it contains c++boost.gif, and subdirectories boost, libs, more, etc.)

  chdir boost_1_28_0   (or whatever release you downloaded)

• Invoke the build system, specifying the toolset(s) you wish to use. The example is for the GNU and Metrowerks compilers.

  bjam "-sTOOLS=gcc metrowerks"

• For more sophisticated invocation options, see the initiating builds documentation.
• To build a single boost library (rather than the whole lot), cd into that library's build subdirectory and build from there:

  cd libs/thread/build
bjam "-sTOOLS=msvc"

Configuring the tools

The build system's toolsets are designed to work in either of two ways:

1. The user sets up all of the environment for each toolset he wants to use in the normal way. For example, for Microsoft VC++, ...vc98/bin is in the path, vcvars32.bat or equivalent has been invoked, etc. For Metrowerks CodeWarrior, cwenv.bat or equivalent has been called and ...Other Metrowerks Tools/Command Line Tools is in the path. Many Unix operating systems come preconfigured this way and require no user intervention.
   
   
2. The user doesn't want his environment cluttered with settings or has non-standard installations for some of his tools. Instead, he or she sets variables which point to the toolset installation directories, either in the command shell environment or on the bjam command-line. These variables are used by the build system to locate the tools and invoke the necessary setup.

Supported Toolsets

The following toolsets are supported by Boost.Build. For information about configuring each toolset, click its name in the leftmost column.

Unless otherwise specified, the library is assumed to be the one shipped with the compiler.

Additional tools can be supplied by adding an appropriate xxxx-tools.jam file to the tools/build subdirectory, where xxxx is the name of the tool being added. If you write an additional toolset file, please submit it to Boost so others may benefit from your work.

Boost.Jam executable

Pre-built Boost.Jam executables are available from the SourceForge download section. Included are plain binaries, packaged binaries, and the source. The Boost.Jam source files are also included in the Boost distribution, so you can build the Boost.Jam executable yourself:

• Build Instructions are included in the Boost.Jam documentation, if you need them.
• Your new Boost.Jam executable will be located in a newly-created tools/build/jam_src/bin.platform subdirectory.
• There will be two executables generated: "jam", and "bjam". They are in fact a copy of the same binary. The "bjam" invocation uses the newer simpler build behaviour. But if you need the traditional Jam/MR behaviour you can use the "jam" invocation.

Windows 9x users should note that the bjam executable will produce command lines too long for command.com to handle.

Cygwin users can use the cygwin executable to work around Windows 9x command line length problems, but only if they are using cygwin-gcc compiler (other windows compilers don't play particularly well with this executable).

Revised 16 December, 2002

© Copyright 2001 Beman Dawes