Re: - How to run Boost Build standalone

Roland,

Thanks for the feedback.  (Comments inline.)

> From: Roland Schwarz <roland.schwarzchello.at>
> 
> Sorry to tell you, but I see a couple of things:
> 
> 1) bjam _is_ _not_ boost build, so the phrase:
>     BJAM - Is a synonym within this document for
Boost.Build.
>     has the potential to confuse users.

Could you please explain what is wrong with the statement? 
Obviously I
am confused myself then =p.

Would it make more sense to change the heading of this
section to
"Definitions used in this document"?

> 
> 2) The title:
>     How do I run Boost Build standalone from the Boost
Software
Library
>     is misleading insofar, as you still need a copy of
the boost
> library.
>     boost-build.jam is not boost-build, it's just a
pointer to it.
>     (Or did you mean to use a copy of
BOOST_ROOT/tools/build/v2
> subdir?)

Obviously I was not clear enough within the document. 
Technically you
do not need the whole of Boost to get Boost Build to work! 
Download the
Nightly snapshot and see exactly what it contains and you
see that it is
not a whole boost distribution!  Obviously there is a lot of
extra stuff
in here you could do without.  I am no expert but from a
very
rudimentary look I would think all you need to get Boost
Build to work
would be (Note: I am just looking within the Zip file):

*	(mandatory files) boost-build.jam, build-system.jam and
bootstrap.jam
*	(optional files) user-config.jam and site-config.jam (you
could
if you wanted to pass all these options as parameters to
BJAM)
*	(mandatory folders and contents) build, kernel, options,
tools
and util

If you had these files and folders in the same directory
layout with a
compiled version of the bjam executable you could use the
Boost Build
system to build whatever you wanted!

> 
> I tried to understand how your setup is supposed to
work, but have to
> admit I need a little longer to understand the
details.
> 
> Perhaps I can look into it this evening.

Please do.  From your comments I am very interested if some
of my
assumptions are incorrect and if they are I would like to
know!

> 
> However one warning:
> 
> bjam's behaviour with regard to BOOST_BUILD_PATH has
been changed.
> It now will try to pick up user-config.jam and
site-config.jam
> from the directory where the boost-build rule will
point to _first_.
> So if you have user-config.jam files there they will be
used instead
of
> yours.

Really?  This really should be mentioned somewhere in the
documentation.
Taking a look here:
http://www.boost.org/doc/html/bbv2/refer
ence.html#bbv2.reference.general
it does not imply that this is the case.  I know it is an
assumption but
if you look at Table 25.2 (from the link above) I assumed
that it looked
for the file in the order specified there within the table? 
(eg
"%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%" then "%HOME%"
and then "%BOOST_BUILD_PATH%")

> 
> Since the nightly snapshot will have default files
there, these will
be
> used instead of the others that follow later in
BOOST_BUILD_PATH.

In this instance it's not so bad as the nightly Boost Build
snapshot has
a fully commented out user-config.jam and site-config.jam
files.

> 
> Please try this out with a bjam executable that you
have compiled from
> trunk!

I assume that the nightly snapshot is (at a maximum) 24
hours old and as
you can see from my WIKI entry I used the nightly snapshot
for the guide
for the 3rd, Sep 2007.  So unless this has changed in the
last two days
I think it's pretty safe.

> 
> To pick up specific user-config.jam files you should
use the new env.
> variable: BOOST_BUILD_USER_CONFIG instead.

I will update the WIKI entry to recommend setting this. 
Just goes to
show what you miss out on if you only skim through the
Boost-Build
mailing list to catch up.  Once again the main Boost Build
documentation
should be updated there is no mention of this new
environment variable
anywhere in the documentation.

As an aside I did a Google search
(http://www.google.com.au/search?q=BOOST_BUILD_USER_CONF
IG) for
"Boost_BUILD_USER_CONFIG" and only got back 9
results.  All of these
were mail group postings!

> 
> Therefore to achieve the desired effect all you need is
to set two
> environment variables:
> 
> SET
BOOST_BUILD_PATH=/Path/to/a/copy/of/v2/subdirectory/of/boost
/build
> SET
BOOST_BUILD_USER_CONFIG=/Path/to/my/custom/user-config.jam
> 
> You will not need any boost-build.jam tricks. (This
file is meant for

=p, the funny thing is I was not really doing any tricks! 
My WIKI
article shows you how to isolate the BJAM.exe,
boost-build.jam,
user-config.jam and site-config.jam files and set up the
environment
variables.  So that you have a stable version of Boost
Build.

> being part of a project, so a project could enforce to
use it's own
> private copy of the build system. You should not try to
circumvent
> this externally.)

Which is the whole point of my WIKI entry.  Trying to
clearly explain
what needs to be done to do this and propose a way to manage
migrating
to newer versions of the Boost Build System.

Once again thanks for the feedback and keep it coming!

Peter.
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Re: - How to run Boost Build standalone

Thread: Re: - How to run Boost Build standalone