Re: [boost] Switch to CMake -- Analysis

AMDG On 07/21/2017 03:32 PM, Mateusz Loskot via Boost wrote:

On 21 July 2017 at 21:53, Artyom Beilis via Boost wrote:

...

1. Support of basic features given by any normal REAL WORLD build system barely exists (library search configuration options etc) 2. Documentation isn't good and it was this for years. 3. Knowledge exits only for few people.

Do you want a proof? Please find me a tutorial how to search a 3rd part library or complete reference documentation for that.

I'd like to second Artyom's comments here. Boost.GIL may serve as another example - with I/O API depending on number of external libraries to support raster formats.

Back in 2010, during and long after the GIL review, I remember Christian Henning (author and maintainer of GIL) and myself, we were having hard times over long months trying to complete the Boost.Build setup for the library. I don't remember if eventually Christian released GIL with user friendly support for third-party libraries. I'd been trying to convince myself [1] to like Boost.Build Extensions [2] for some time.

I distinctly remember helping Christian with the Boost.Build support and the modules are present: https://github.com/boostorg/build/blob/develop/src/tools/libjpeg.jam https://github.com/boostorg/build/blob/develop/src/tools/libpng.jam https://github.com/boostorg/build/blob/develop/src/tools/libtiff.jam https://github.com/boostorg/build/blob/develop/src/tools/zlib.jam However, the actual test suite seems to be using those Boost.Build extensions you mentioned (In addition to hard-coding Christian's local paths). Usage: b2 -sZLIB_LIBRARY_PATH=XXX -sZLIB_INCLUDE=YYY -or- b2 -sZLIB_SOURCE=ZZZ -or- In user-config.jam: using zlib : 1.2.7 : <search>/a/path <include>/a/path ; -or- Do nothing and let zlib be found in the system path. Inside the Jamfile: import ac ; using zlib ; exe test : src.cpp : # If zlib is found... [ ac.check-library /zlib//zlib : # link to it and also include the sources that use it <library>/zlib//zlib <source>code-using-zlib.cpp ] ; In Christ, Steven Watanabe