How to compile Boost.Process library?

Question

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 -j N 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)?

Answer 1

I did this once or twice and here's what I remember:

After downloading boost libs eg from the sandbox, unpack the lib onto the drive like you said eg 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.

Eg 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.