Boost in Visual Studio 2010 using /clr

Question

I made a series of classes that I wish to incorporate into a Windows Forms application for Visual Studio 2010. Those classes utilize Boost, specifically boost::thread.

With common language runtime support enabled, I receive the following error messages:

1>c:\program files (x86)\boost\boost_1_47\boost\thread\win32\thread_primitives.hpp(314): error C2472: 'boost::detail::win32::interlocked_bit_test_and_set' cannot be generated in managed code: 'Found an intrinsic not supported in managed code'; compile with /clr to generate a mixed image

1>c:\program files (x86)\boost\boost_1_47\boost\thread\win32\basic_timed_mutex.hpp(160): error C2472: 'boost::detail::basic_timed_mutex::unlock' cannot be generated in managed code: 'Found an intrinsic not supported in managed code'; compile with /clr to generate a mixed image

I understand what the message is saying, but I don't know how to work around it. Disabling common language runtime support in the Project Properties creates a ton of other errors, so: how do I incorporate /clr into the Boost library I'm using?

Answer 1

Boost.thread uses some thread local storage calls that don't work if you directly link them with CLR code. In VS2008 the link would succeed but you'd crash on startup -- I suspect this is a symptom of the same problem, VS2010-style. The workaround is to build boost.thread as a DLL instead of linking it statically, and maybe it'll link for you that way...