Boost - Building from source

Boost is a comprehensive and portable libraries. It provides libraries from Math, IO, Network, etc... You can check out the list of libraries here. The main reason for my interest in this libraries is their portability. They had figured out the the x86 and x64 portability issues on these libraries. All you need is to compile the source with appropriate switches for your code. Moreover, this is a free library that can be used both commercial and non-commercial usage.

How to build from source

Follow the step to build the Boost from source.

1. Download latest version here

2. Unzip/untar the downloaded source

3. Use command prompt to run bootstrap.bat for Windows and bootstrap.sh for Linux

5. Then, run the following bjam for build

Bjam linux 32 bit with GCC

./bjam --build-dir="/root/boost_1_46_1/lib" --build-type=complete toolset=gcc address-model=32 architecture=x86 link=static --with-thread --with-serialization

Bjam Window commands 64 bit with MSVC 10

bjam --build-dir="C:\Boost\boost_1_46_1\lib" --build-type=complete toolset=msvc-10.0 address-model=64 architecture=x86 link=static --with-system --with-date_time --with-regex

Important switch to take note

--build-dir=

It allows you to specify the output of the libraries builds

toolset=[gcc|msvc-10.0]

It allows you to set the compile toolset for the source. For my example, it uses gcc and msvc-10.0

address-model=[32|64]

It allows you to defined to compile 32/64 bits libraries

link=[static|shared]

It allows you to build static or shared libraries

--with-xxxxx

It allows you to specify which specific to be built. For example, --with-system --with-date_time --with-regex means to build only system, data_time and regex libraries

See:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_46_1/more/getting_started/windows.html#toolset

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_46_1/more/getting_started/unix-variants.html