No ideas? Is it not possible? Maybe I wasn't clear enough... I'm using Boost Build V2... I want to create a target that looks something like this: explicit userplugin ; lib userplugin : $(userpluginfiles) : <link>shared <include>$(encore-root)/include <include>$(framework-root)/include <include>$(utility-root)/include ; Userplugin is essentially something built by one of our users... it is a shared object that just needs access to the header files shown above. Unfortunately, all of those header files are looking for a bunch of "-D" arguments when compiling... which don't come through for the userplugin target because it doesn't actually depend on any libraries itself (which is where the <define>'s are). The problem is that if I make it depend on the library it links all of that libary into the .so... which is wasteful since all of those symbols are going to be in the executable that is loading the .so . So what I really need is a way to pull in all of the <define> tags from a library (and it's dependencies) without actually depending on that library. Or, barring that, a way to exclude linking in the object files from a library I depend on. Any help? Do I need to clarify more? Thanks, Derek On 9/12/07, Derek Gaston wrote:

Hello all,

I'm trying to figure out how I can get the full set of defines from a dependency (and it's dependencies)... without actually depending on it.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Derek