some questions about Boost libraries

[Masterx]

hello all .
i have just downloaded the latest boost source codes and compiled them, and configured the stuff as i should have!
and then i tried to compile some examples to see how stuff works, and also to check if everything went well! .
one of the examples ran well! but the other one which you can see below, gave me couple of errors!

#include<iostream>
#include<boost/filesystem/operations.hpp>
namespace bfs=boost::filesystem;
int main()
{
    bfs::path p("second.cpp");
    if(bfs::exists(p))
    std::cout<<p.leaf()<<std::endl;
}

and errors:

||=== boost example, Debug ===|
obj\Debug\main.o||In function `_Z41__static_initialization_and_destruction_0ii':|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\system\error_code.hpp|205|undefined reference to `boost::system::get_system_category()'|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\system\error_code.hpp|206|undefined reference to `boost::system::get_generic_category()'|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\system\error_code.hpp|211|undefined reference to `boost::system::get_generic_category()'|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\system\error_code.hpp|212|undefined reference to `boost::system::get_generic_category()'|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\system\error_code.hpp|213|undefined reference to `boost::system::get_system_category()'|
obj\Debug\main.o||In function `_ZThn48_NK5boost16exception_detail10clone_implINS0_19error_info_injectorINS_10filesystem22basic_filesystem_errorINS3_10basic_pathISsNS3_11path_traitsEEEEEEEE7rethrowEv':|
)]+0x80)||undefined reference to `boost::filesystem::detail::status_api(std::string const&, boost::system::error_code&)'|
F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\include\boost-1_40\boost\throw_exception.hpp:(.text$_ZN5boost6system10error_codeC1Ev[boost::system::error_code::error_code()]+0x14)||undefined reference to `boost::system::get_system_category()'|
||=== Build finished: 7 errors, 0 warnings ===|

my question is , how should i know which header file needs which *.lib file!
i think the above errors are due to the absence of a lib file of some kind!
so please help me on this !
and the second question is how can i find more about classes, functions and other useful stuff in boost , just like what we have in C++ Reference [C++ Reference] with examples for each of them , so that i can understand how to use them in my program .
thank you all in advance

[Mario F.]

Only a very limited selection of boost libraries need compiled libs. Filesystem is one of them.

The others are (if I'm not missing anything...)

Date Time
Graph
Iostreams
Math
Program Options
Regex
Serialization
Signals
System
Test
Threads
Wave

You know which ones need compiled libs by either looking at the library documentation, looking at your boost lib folder, or looking at error messages like you had. Simple.

As for help with Boost libraries:

- Documentation is often very good and that is all you need.

- There's also plenty of material on the web if you search for help on a particular library.

- There's this forum that can hopefully answer your questions on any issue you may have.

- And there's this one book which provides some introductory material into a representative (and often used) group of boost libraries: Addison Wesley - Beyond the C++ Standard Library, An Introduction to Boost, by By Björn Karlsson

[Masterx]

tanx . i'll give it a try, if ran into any problem i post here again .
again thank you verymuch

[Masterx]

damn it! im trying to rebuild the binaries from the source codes.
first i tried

bootstrap
.\bjam

for Visual Studio 2008 .
but i couldnt get everything to work .

now im trying to rebuild the binary using

bjam --build-dir=build-directory toolset=toolset-name --build-type=complete stage

the problem is whenever i try to visit Boost.Build documentation. ,
it says "its not found! " what the ...!?
now what ? where should i dig in?
can any one give me a step by step procedure to compile/build the whole stuff from source code ? for visual Studio 2008 and CodeBlocks in windows, so that everything would be there ready to use?
i would be very thankful .

----------------------
im trying to build the source codes using the -a postfix (suffix !?) for .\bjam, i mean

bootstrap
.\bjam -a

i dont know whether this compiles all of the stuff or not . i would be again thankful if anyone guide me on these stuff .
thanx in advance

[Masterx]

well ,i deleted the boost directory , and tried to start form begining! so i uncompressed the source codes under a folder as "boost_1_40_0" in my root of drive F as :

F:\boost_1_40_0\boost_1_40_0\here are the contents

i tried

bootstrap
.\bjam -a

for my Visual Studio 2008 just like before .but this time unlike the previous attempt! it doesnt compile anything! it seemed it compiled everything ( i mean built the boost ! ). (but when finished , i got more than hundreds of errors!!!when i tried to compile a sample form boost website . )i am really confused! it seems i messed a hell lot of stuff!. can any one help me on how to get my visual studio at least to work again!
---------------------------------
for my CodeBlocks and hence gcc compiler i used

set PATH=F:\boost-jam-3.1.17-1-ntx86\boost-jam-3.1.17-1-ntx86\boost-jam-3.1.17-1-ntx86;%PATH%

cd F:\boost_1_40_0\boost_1_40_0
bjam --toolset=gcc "--prefix=F:\Program Files\CodeBlocks" install--build-type=complete

which again used to work! but well now it wont!
can anyone tell me what i did mess up! ?and tell me how can i get both my visual studio and codeblocks to work.
let me clarify it more .
i have both Visual Studio 2008 and CodeBlocks installed on my system.
and im planning to work on both specially to make sure my projects compile fine on both of them .
so i think i have to simply compile the Boost libraries twice !
one time for visual Studio and the second time for my gcc compiler ( codeblocks).
it seems whenever i try to compile one after another!, one of them stop functioning ( that might be because of wrong procedure i chose to compile?!)
i have a folder named boost_1_40_0 which has the uncompressed boost libraries in it .
is there any way that i only build the libraries once and then both CodeBlocks and Visual Studio 2008 can make use of it ? is there any way to do that ?
i noticed after first build the boost library folder ( here on my system ) becomes 1.7 Gigabyte
! and when i tried to build it the second time for my gcc , it exceeded 2.4 Gigabyte! and since i have little space left on my H.D.D i canceled it and im looking for a help here..

so to cut a long story short. how can i build my boost completely ( i mean with the whole stuff built) for both my visual studio 2008 and codeblocks ?

tanx and sorry for bothering ya .

[Mario F.]

I know, I know.
First time I tried out boost I also had trouble with their builder. Boost.Build is not the knight in shiny armor coming to save us from the teeth of the Make Dragon. They sent us a peasant with a pitchfork.

So, Boost.Build becomes just another builder that forces people into learning yet another syntax, which really doesn't add any benefit whatsoever to what we already have, neither it simplified what we already have. It's the "I can do better than you" syndrome that never translates into "better" but always to "more of the same". It has also affected others. Regular Expressions Hell is that place where all regular expressions extension makers and new syntax developers go when they die.

Enough rant...

....

You can, if the whole thing is starting to get in your nerves, simply download the binaries already compiled for you: Boost C++ Libraries Installers for Windows - BoostPro Computing. But only if you are using MSVC 2008 or 2005.

If you are using gcc you have to go through building boost yourself.

what you are after is the following command line:

bjam --prefix=c:\dev\boost toolset=gcc debug link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static --without-python install

- This is instructing boost to build the debug versions of the static libs.
- You want the built libraries to go into a lib folder inside c:\dev\boost
- You want to build the libraries with threads support
- You want the libraries to be compiled against the static runtime
- You do not want the python library
- And you are instructing boost.build to install everything (including documentation)


Now, on your case:

- I suppose you want to change the toolset to gcc.

- You don't need the runtime-link=static with gcc, if memory serves me right. I think with the gcc toolset, runtime-link will be ignored altogether. I'm keeping it there for the sake of it.

- Once this build is done, you will want to then repeat this command changing "debug" to "release" in order to build the release version of the libraries.

- Once those two are done, you may want to create the dll versions of the libraries. If you indeed wish to create those, you need to repeat the command for the "debug" and "release" versions of the libs, but this time changing "link=static" to "link=shared".

- You don't need bootstrap!

- You simply download the libraries from here as well as boot jam. Decompress the whole thing to some folder in your disk and move the bjam executable inside too.

[Masterx]

many thanks dear Mario F.
before i see your post and go through the instruction you gave me , i have prepared some thing to post here, its a summery of what i did and what i got . here it is .
before that i must say that i do not have the ability to use that boostpro stuff , cause i dont have a broad band internet connection , so thats a pain in the neck . and also i would want to have it ready for offline systems, so thats why im trying to compile and build the boost form its source codes.
and oh, by the way i have already downloaded the boost_1_40_0.7zfrom the link you just provided me

http://www.boost.org/users/download/

and all i did was with this package.
ok here is the summery of what i did and its result .

i rebuild my boost source code for Visual Studio 2008 using the :

bootstrap
.\bjam -a

.
then it seemed everything went just fine .
tried to compile some boost examples . some of them compiled and some didnt .
i noticed that whenever i tried to used regex for example, i got an error indicating :"

LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'libboost_regex-vc90-mt-gd-1_40.lib "

well i tried to look for the file , and found a folder in my boost root directory named "bin.v2" , then i found a folder named "libs" , i opened it and
found regex folder, there were bunch of other subfolders , starting with build, and then msvc-9.0 and finally debug. so simply i went to :

"regex\build\msvc-9.0\debug\link-static\threading-multi" located in "F:\boost\boost_1_40_0\bin.v2\libs\" .

to my amazement i found the missing .lib file! yes the " libboost_regex-vc90-mt-gd-1_40.lib " was there!
i righ clicked on my project and chose properties, then i navigated to the linker Option . and went for the "Additional Library Directories "
then typed "

F:\boost\boost_1_40_0\bin.v2\libs\"

and Applied the changes, then once more again tried to run the example! guess what ? ...
again the same error message poped up! . i changed the path in linker section to
"

F:\boost\boost_1_40_0\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-9.0\debug\link-static\threading-multi

"
and Applied the changes, and went for compiling the example . Yeah , it compiled just fine .
the problem is i have this kind of problem with most of headers ( i mean those which need to be compiled like system and etc') .
i just cant go do this kinda of stuff for each time im going to use a specific header file . the problem gets worse when i try to use multiple header files!
what should i do to solve my problem ?
----------------------------
and my second problem is that i have codeblocks IDE and gcc installed on my system ,putting, having the same above problem, aside, i need to code in both IDEs (VS 2008 and C::B),
so i need both of them to function well when using boost libraries, i noticed that i should build boost libraries twice , once for each of them ,and again i found out that i need two separate
folders for this . am i right so far? and if not how can i build the boost library and configure both of the IDEs to use the built boost libraries .

Thank you in advance .

[Masterx]

and by the way im following your instruction to build my gcc version of boost . so far i built the debug versio, now im building the release version , and then i'll say what happened .
-------------

result for release build :
failed updating 115 targets
skipped 210 targets
updated 63 targets

----------------

result for both debug and release when shared link is used:
failed updating 115 targets
skipped 210 targets
updated 21 targets

--------------------------------
and by the way i went to c:dev\boost , and there were two sub folders , one was include , and the other was lib.
the lib folder is empty! and the include folder contains lots of headers . is it ok ? should it be like this ?

-------------------------------
after all of those instructions , i followed these:

Set up a Code::Blocks global variable for Boost

This step only needs to be performed once, after which the global variable you've created will be available for any project.

* Open the Settings menu and select "Global variables..."
* Click the "New" button next to the Current variable list, specify a name like "boost", and hit OK
* In the "base" field of the Builtin fields section, browse for the base of your Boost installation -- the path you specified in the --prefix option of the build command

* In the "include" field, browse for the "include\boost-1_40" subfolder of your Boost installation -- it should be the path in the "base" field with "\include\boost-1_40" tacked on.
* Hit the Close button to save your global variable

Add Boost search directories to your project

* Right-click your project's name in the Projects section of the Management window and select "Build options..."
* Highlight the root of your project in the tree on the left side of the Project build options window
* Select the "Search directories" tab
* With the "Compiler" subtab selected, click the Add button, enter "$(#boost.include)" (without the quotes), and hit OK


* With the "Linker" subtab selected, click the Add button, enter "$(#boost.lib)" (without the quotes), and hit OK

now i tried to compile this

#include <boost/lambda/lambda.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace boost::lambda;
int main()
{

    typedef std::istream_iterator<int> in;

    std::for_each(
        in(std::cin), in(), std::cout << (_1 * 3) << " " );
}

and got the following errors!
what did i miss ?

-------------- Build: Debug in boost example ---------------

Linking console executable: bin\Debug\boost example.exe
f:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\MinGW\bin\ld.exe: cannot find -lC:\dev\boost\lib
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
Process terminated with status 1 (0 minutes, 0 seconds)
1 errors, 0 warnings

||=== boost example, Debug ===|
ld.exe||cannot find -lC:\dev\boost\lib|
||=== Build finished: 1 errors, 0 warnings ===|

[Mario F.]

Just please delete everything boost related from your hard drive and try from the very beginning following my instructions and what you get from here.

Just follow the instructions. My post pertains only to the last part where you are required to build the libraries (point 5.3.4)

From your output it was trying to rebuild already existing libraries. Just start from the very beginning.

[Masterx]

Just please delete everything boost related from your hard drive and try from the very beginning following my instructions and what you get from here.

Just follow the instructions. My post pertains only to the last part where you are required to build the libraries (point 5.3.4)

From your output it was trying to rebuild already existing libraries. Just start from the very beginning.

Ok. so i should only need to delete the root directory for boost right / ?
because i think it now contains the build library ? again because when i decompressed it ( it was 30 Mb in 7zip . ) it was only 195 Mb, and then after building ,it increased to 1.7 Gigabyte . right? ( this is for my Visual Studio 2008 , using bootstrap and .\bjam -a . )
am i right so far ? do i need to delete anything else rather than this folder ?
and by the way last time i just did what ever i found from the part 5.2 ! i only change .\bjam to .\bjam-a !
anyways im going to delete everything!
----------
by the way for codeblocks procedure , i looked at the folder in C:\dev, it only contains 43 Mbs!! i think thats why it didnt work!

anyway im going to delete these two folders . and start form begining! ( i dont know what else to delete ! though )

[Mario F.]

Everything

[Masterx]

i did what you told me to . i deleted the boost root directory and followed the instruction on
boost website .
decompressed the boost source codes , and before doing anything , i used .\bjam --clean
nothing happened! and then started the instructions as told .
after that , tried to compile a sample program form that page . i mean

#include <boost/lambda/lambda.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
    using namespace boost::lambda;
    typedef std::istream_iterator<int> in;

    std::for_each(
        in(std::cin), in(), std::cout << (_1 * 3) << " " );
}

it compiled just fine without any problem . but when i tried to compile this bit of code :

#include<iostream>
#include<boost/filesystem/operations.hpp>
namespace bfs=boost::filesystem;
int main()
{
    bfs::path p("second.cpp");
    if(bfs::exists(p))
    std::cout<<p.leaf()<<std::endl;
	system("pause");
}

i got the same previous error :

1>LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'libboost_filesystem-vc90-mt-gd-1_40.lib'

now what should i do ? its just the same , and if i want to get that to work the hard way , the same scenario which i have here repeats !
now with this , this is the 5th time i delete and then rebuild that damn boost from scratch !
i havent compile boost for my gcc compiler yet , i'll do it whenever i can get VS2008 to work .

[Mario F.]

All is fine. You just need to link your executable against the library libboost_filesystem-vc90-mt-gd-1_40.lib. Somehow you aren't doing that right.

First check if the library indeed exists.
It should. So next make sure you are giving the linker the full path to the library, or adding the path to boost libraries to your linker searchable paths.

This all you do from your IDE. I removed CodeBlocks from my system a long time ago. I can't remember anymore the details. Others will help.

[vladimir_prus]

MisterX,

I wanted to clarify some details. First, sorry about the broken link. I have now fixed that for upcoming 1.41. Note that you can always get up-to-date Boost.Build documentation at Boost.Build V2.

Also, if you are using Windows, and Visual Studio, you should not need neither "bjam clean", neither "bjam -a". Just "bootstrap.bat" followed by "bjam". This puts the libraries to stage/lib -- in fact, the first thing "bjam" prints is a message telling where the libraries will be placed. If you run into problems, please reported them to [email protected] or meet us in the #boost channel on freenode.

You last error appears to be due not adding the lib directory to the linker search path. I am sure CodeBlock experts can help you with that.

[Masterx]

MisterX,

I wanted to clarify some details. First, sorry about the broken link. I have now fixed that for upcoming 1.41. Note that you can always get up-to-date Boost.Build documentation at Boost.Build V2.

Also, if you are using Windows, and Visual Studio, you should not need neither "bjam clean", neither "bjam -a". Just "bootstrap.bat" followed by "bjam". This puts the libraries to stage/lib -- in fact, the first thing "bjam" prints is a message telling where the libraries will be placed. If you run into problems, please reported them to [email protected] or meet us in the #boost channel on freenode.

You last error appears to be due not adding the lib directory to the linker search path. I am sure CodeBlock experts can help you with that.

Thank you very much dear vladimir_prus .
well my problem with visual studio is that , i should manually specify the libs location needed by the linker ( in linker option , the additional directories ") for everything projects that i would want to use boost!
you know its really tedious to do such a thing! again and again!, i wonder if its normal when using visual studio and boost together !?

i'll be definitely there if i couldn't manage to get rid of this problem .
and for CodeBlock i will get that to work.
but dont you thing providing the user with an Iso version of compiled binaries for boost would help alot ?
i mean just make an installer that would configure the needed stuff itself and saves us the trouble , im talking about Iso, because there are some people out there that dont have access to broadband internet connection ,including me,
and or needs the boost for offline systems, so in these cases that Iso would be great .
i would really want you guys to do us this favor .
again thanks for everything .