Boost.Build v2 user manual

How to use this document

If you've just found out about Boost.Build V2 and want to know if it will work for you, start with tutorial. You can continue with the reference. When you're ready to try Boost.Build in practice, go to installation.

If you are about to use Boost.Build on your project, or already using it and have a problem, look at the reference.

If you're trying to build a project which uses Boost.Build, look at installation and then read about command line.

Finally, if nothing applies to you, write to our mailing list, telling what information you'd like to know.

Installation

1. Go to "jam_src" directory and build Boost.Jam. Two convenient scripts are provided, "build.sh" (for Unix systems) and "build.bat" (for Windows). Run the appropriate one and Boost.Jam will be built to directory bin.{platform_name}.. The Boost.Jam documentation has more details in case you need them.
2. Place the Boost.Jam binary, called "bjam" or "bjam.exe", somewhere in your PATH. Go to the root directory of Boost.Build and run "bjam --version". You should get

         Boost.Build V2 (Milestone N)
        
   

   (where N is the version you've downloaded).
3. Configure toolsets to use. Open the user-config.jam file and follow instructions there to specify what compiles/libraries you have and where they are located.
4. You should now be able to go to example/hello, and run bjam there. A simple application will be built. You can also play with other projects in example.

If you use Boost distribution, or Boost CVS, the Boost.Build root is located at $boost_root/tools/build/v2 and the installation steps are the same. However, don't skip the bjam rebuilding step, even if you have a previous version. CVS version of Boost.Build requires CVS version of Boost.Jam.

When starting a new project which uses Boost.Build, you need to make sure that build system can be found. There are two ways.

• Set enviromnetal variable BOOST_BUILD_PATH to the absolute path to Boost.Build installation directory.
• Create, at the top of your project, a file called boost-build.jam, with a single line:

  boost-build /path/to/boost.build ;
  

If you're trying to use Boost.Build V2 on Boost itself, please note that when building Boost, V1 is used by default. You'd have to add --v2 command line option to all "bjam" invocations.

Tutorial

Hello, world

   exe hello : hello.cpp ;

    bjam release 

   exe hello2 : hello.cpp ;

    bjam debug release

   bjam --clean debug release

   bjam hello2
   bjam --clean hello2

Properties

Boost.Build attempts to allow building different variants of projects, e.g. for debugging and release, or in single and multithreaded mode. In order to stay portable, it uses the concept of features, which is abstract aspect of build configuration. Property is just a (feature,value) pair. For example, there's a feature "debug-symbols", which can have a value of "on" or "off". When users asks to build project is a particual value, Boost.Build will automatically find the appropriate flags to the used compiler.

The "release" and "debug" in bjam invocation that we've seen are just are short form of specifying values of feature "variant". There is a lot of builtin features, and it's possible to write something like:

   bjam release inlining=off debug-symbols=on

   feature-name=feature-value

   exe hello 
       : hello.cpp
       : <include>/home/ghost/Work/boost <threading>multi

   project 
       : requirements <include>/home/ghost/Work/boost <threading>multi 
       ;

   exe hello : hello.cpp ;
   exe hello2 : hello.cpp ;

Project hierarchy

So far we only considered examples with one project (i.e. with one Jamfile). Typically, you'd have a lot of projects organized into a tree. At the top of the tree there's project root. This is a directory which contains, besides Jamfile, a file called "project-root.jam". Each other Jamfile has a single parent, which is the Jamfile in the nearest parent directory. For example, in the following directory layout:

    [top] 
      |
      |-- Jamfile
      |-- project-root.jam
      |
      |-- src
      |    |
      |    |-- Jamfile
      |    \-- app.cpp
      | 
      \-- lib
           |
           |-- lib1
           |    |
           |    |-- Jamfile
                |-- lib1.cpp

     <include>/home/ghost/local

    build-project src ;

Using libraries

     lib lib1 : lib1.cpp ;

     exe app : app.cpp ../lib/lib1//lib1 ;

    <optimization>full <cxxflags>-w-8080

    project 
        : usage-requirements <include>.
        ;

     lib lib1 : lib1.cpp ;

The second problem is that we hardcode the path to library's Jamfile. Imagine it's hardcoded in 20 different places and we change the directory layout. The solution is to use project ids — symbolic names, not tied to directory layout. First, we assign a project id to Jamfile in lib/lib1:

    project lib1
        : usage-requirements <include>.
        ;

    exe app : app.cpp /lib1//lib1 ;

    use-project /lib1 : lib/lib1 ;

Library dependencies

The previous example was simple. Often, there are long chains of dependencies between libraries. The main application is a thin wrapper on top of library with core logic, which uses library of utility functions, which uses boost filesystem library. Expressing these dependencies is straightforward:

    lib utils : utils.cpp /boost/filesystem//fs ;   
    lib core : core.cpp utils ;
    exe app : app.cpp core ;

So, what's the reason to even mention this case? First, because it's a bit more complex that it seems. When using shared linking, libraries are build just as written, and everything will work. However, what happens with static linking? It's not possible to include another library in static library. Boost.Build solves this problem by returning back library targets which appear as sources for static libraries. In this case, if everything is built statically, the "app" target will link not only "core" library, but also "utils" and "/boost/filesystem//fs".

So, the net result is that the above code will work for both static linking and for shared linking.

Sometimes, you want all applications in some project to link to a certain library. Putting the library in sources of all targets is possible, but verbose. You can do better by using <library> property. For example, if "/boost/filesystem//fs" should be linked to all applications in your project, you can add <library>/boost/filesystem//fs to requirements of the project, like this:

    project 
       : requirements <library>/boost/filesystem//fs
       ;   

Static and shared libaries

Static libraries do not suffer from these problems, but considerably increase the size of application. Before describing static libraries, it's reasonable to give another, quite simple approach. If your project is built with <hardcode-dll-paths>true property, then the application will include the full paths for all shared libraries, eliminating the above problems. Unfortunately, you no longer can move shared library to a different location, which makes this option suitable only for debug builds. Further, only gcc compiler supports this option.

Building a library statically is easy. You'd need to change the value of <link> feature from it's deafault value shared, to static. So, to build everything as static libraries, you'd say

    bjam link=static

1. Suppose your library can be only build statically. This is easily achieved using requirements:

       lib l : l.cpp : <link>static ;
      
   

2. What if library can be both static and shared, but when using it in specific executable, you want it static? Target references are here to help:

       exe important : main.cpp helpers/<link>static ;
      
   

3. What if the library is defined in some other project, which you cannot change. But still, you want static linking to that library in all cases. You can use target references everywhere:

       exe e1 : e1.cpp /other_project//lib1/<link>static ;
       exe e10 : e10.cpp /other_project//lib1/<link>static ;
      
   

   but that's far from being convenient. Another way is to introduce a level of indirection: create a local target, which will refer to static version of lib1. Here's the solution:

       alias lib1 : /other_project//lib1/<link>static ;
       exe e1 : e1.cpp lib1 ;
       exe e10 : e10.cpp lib1 ;
      
   

   (Note, that the "alias" target type is not yet implemented, but it's quite simple to do. I bet it's waiting for you to do it ;-))

Prebuilt targets

    lib lib2
       : 
       : <file>lib2_release.a <variant>release
       ;

    lib lib2
       : 
       : <file>lib2_debug.a <variant>debug
       ;

    exe app : app.cpp /lib/lib1//lib2 ../lib/lib2//lib2 ;

    lib zlib : : <name>z ;

    lib zlib : : <name>z <search>/opt/lib ;

    lib zlib : : <name>z <variant>release ;
    lib zlib : : <name>z_d <variant>debug ;

More advanced use of prebuilt target is descibed in recipes.

Reference

Overview

The most fundemental entity in Boost.Build is main target. This is object that user want to construct from sources and keep up to date with regard to those sources. Typical examples of main targets are executable files and libraries.

Main targets are grouped in projects. Their main purpose is organization: related targets placed in one project, can then be built together, or share some definitions.

Main targets and projects are created as the result of reading one or several Jamfiles. Each Jamfile is a file written in Boost.Jam interpreted language, and typically contains calls to functions provided by Boost.Build, which create main targets of needed type, declare project attributes and access other projects. The full list of functions provided by Boost.Build is described below. Of course, user can create his own functions, or it can directly access Boost.Build internals from Jamfile, if builtin facilities are not sufficient.

Each main target, or project can be built in a number of ways, say with optimization or without. We'll call such entities "metatargets". To make Boost.Build produce any real targets, user issues build request, which specifies metatargets to be built, and properties to be used.

The properties are just (name,value) pairs that describe various aspects of constructed objects, for example:

<optimization>full <inlining>off

Given the built request, Boost.Build figures out the targets needed for requested metatargets with requested properties, how they can be created, and whether exising files can be reused. It finally issues command to create needed files, automatically converting properties into appropricate command line options.

Your first project and roadmap

Creating your first project requires three steps:

1. Create an empty file called "Jamfile"
2. Create an empty file called "project-root.jam"
3. Either set your BOOST_BUILD_PATH environment variant to Boost.Build root, or create a "boost-build.jam" file with the following content:

   boost-build /path/to/boost.build ;
   

After that, you can run the "bjam" command in the directory where you've created the files. Surely, it won't do anything, but it will run without error, at least. Your next steps might be:

1. Adding new main targets to the "Jamfile" file. The basic syntax for declaring a main target is described below, and all builtin functions for declaring main targets are listed.
2. Creating subprojects. Create a directory, put new Jamfile there, and move some main targets to that Jamfile, or declare new ones. The projects reference will help with this part.
3. Customizing Boost.Build for your needs. You might have additional tools you want to run, or just want different extension for some file. The extender manual is waiting for you.

Main targets

Main target is a user-defined named entity which can be build, for example a named executable file. Declaring a main target is usually done using one of main target functions. The user can also declare custom main target function.

Most main targets rules in Boost.Build use similiar syntax:

    function-name main-target-name 
        : sources 
        : requirements 
        : default-build 
        : usage-requirements 
        ;
   

• "main-target-name" is the name used to request the target on command line and to use it from other main targets. Main target name may contain alphanumeric characters and symbols '-' and '_';
• "sources" is the list of source files and other main targets that must be combined. If source file is specified using relative path, it's considered to be relative to the source directory of the project where the path is used. See the project rule for information how to change source directory.
• "requirements" is the list of properties that must always be present when this main target is built.
• "default-build" is the list of properties that will be used unless some other value of the same feature is already specified.
• "usage-requirements" is the list of properties that will be propagated to all main targets that use this one, i.e. to all dependedents.

Some main target rules have shorter list of parameters, and you should consult their documentation for details.

Building of the same main target can differ greatly from platform to platform. For example, you might have different list of sources for different compilers. Therefore it is possible to invoke main target rules several times for a single main target. For example:

    exe a : a_gcc.cpp : <toolset>gcc ;
    exe a : a.cpp ;

Sometime a main target is really needed only by some other main target. E.g. a rule that declared test-suite uses a main target that represent test, but those main targets are rarely needed by themself.

It possible to declare target inline, i.e. the "sources" parameter may include call to other main rules. For example:

    exe hello : hello.cpp 
       [ obj helpers : helpers.cpp : <optimization>off ] ;
   

Projects

Boost.Build considers every software it build as organized into projects — modules which declare targets. Projects are organized in a hierarchical structure, so each project may have a single parent project and a number of subprojects.

Most often, projects are created as result of loading Jamfile — files which are specially meant to describe projects. Boost.Build will implicitly load Jamfile in the invocation directory, and all Jamfiles referred by the first one, creating the hierarchy of projects.

The exact name of file that describes project is configurable. By default, it's Jamfile, but can be changed by setting global variables JAMFILE, for example in boost-build.jam file. The value of the variable is a list of regex patterns that are used when searching for Jamfile in a directory.

Every Boost.Build modules can decide to act as project and be able to declare targets. For example, the site-config.jam module can declare libraries available on a given host, as described here.

There are three things that can be put in Jamfile: declarations of main targets, calls to a number of predefined rules, and arbitrary user code. The predefined rules are listed below:

Each project is also associated with project root. That's a root for a tree of projects, which specifies some global properties.

Project root

• configure toolsets, via call to toolset.using
• refer to other projects, via the use-project rule
• declare constants, via the constant and path-constant rules.

To facilitate declaration of simple projects, Jamfile and project-root can be merged together. To achieve this effect, the project root file should call the project rule. The semantic is precisely the same as if the call was made in Jamfile, except that project-root.jam will start serve as Jamfile. The Jamfile in the directory of project-root.jam will be ignored, and project-root.jam will be able to declare main targets as usual.

Project attributes

For each project, there are several attributes.

Project id is a short way to denote a project, as opposed to the Jamfile's pathname. It is a hierarchical path, unrelated to filesystem, such as "boost/thread". Target references make use of project ids to specify a target.

Source location specifies the directory where sources for the project are located.

Project requirements are requirements that apply to all the targets in the projects as well as all subprojects.

Default build is the build request that should be used when no build request is specified explicitly.

The default values for those attributes are given in the table below. In order to affect them, Jamfile may call the project rule. The rule has this syntax:

    project id : <attributes> ;
   

    project tennis 
        : requirements <threading>multi 
        : default-build release
        ;
   

Project relationship

There are three kinds of project relationships.

First is parent-child. This relationship is established implicitly: parent directories of a project are searched, and the first found Jamfile is assumed to define the parent project. The parent-child relationship affects only attribute values for the child project.

Second is build relationship. Some project may request to recursively build other projects. Those project need not be child projects. The build-project rule is used for that:

    build-project src ;   

The third kind is the 'use' relationship. In means that one project uses targets from another. It is possible to just refer to target in other projects using target id. However, if target id uses project id, it is required that the project id is known. The use-project rule is employed to guarantee that.

    use-project ( id : location )
   

Target identifiers and references

Target identifier is used to denote a target. The syntax is:

    target-id -> (project-id | target-name | file-name )
                  | (project-id | directory-name) "//" target-name   
    project-id -> path
    target-name -> path
    file-name -> path
    directory-name -> path                  

• project id (at this point, all project ids start with slash).
• name of target declared in current Jamfile (note that target names may include slash).
• a regular file, denoted by absolute name or name relative to project's sources location.

    a                                    -- target in current project
    lib/b.cpp                            -- regular file
    /boost/thread                        -- project "/boost/thread"
    /home/ghost/build/lr_library//parser -- target in specific project

Rationale:Target is separated from project by special separator (not just slash), because:

• It emphasises that projects and targets are different things.
• It allows to have main target names with slashes.

Target reference is used to specify a source target, and may additionally specify desired properties for that target. It has this syntax:

    target-reference -> target-id [ "/" requested-properties ]
    requested-properties -> property-path

    exe compiler : compiler.cpp libs/cmdline/<optimization>space ;

Builtin facilities

Main targets

exe

Creates a regular executable file. Sources must be either object files or libraries, and sources of different types will be converted to accepted types automatically.

lib

Creates a library file. Depending on the value of <link> feature the library will be either static or shared. Like with "exe", sources will be converted either to objects or libraries.

The handling of libraries in sources depends on whether linking is static or shared. For shared linking, libraries will be linked in. For static linking the library sources will not be linked in, since it's not possible, and will be passed on. Other main target which depend on this one will see those libraries and link to it. Therefore, putting library in sources of other library works in all cases.

alias

Builds all the source targets and returns them unmodified. Please run "bjam --help alias" for more details.

stage

Copies a number of targets to a single directory. The primary purpose is installing binaries. Please run "bjam --help stage" for more details.

unit-test (from module "testing")

Creates an executable file and runs it. Build won't succeed unless the executable runs successfully. The rule is usefull for creating test program which should be rerun whenever any dependency changes.

Features

variant

The feature which combines several low-level features in order to make building most common variants simple.

Allowed values: debug, release, profile

The value debug expands to

    <optimization>off <debug-symbols>on <inlining>off <runtime-debugging>on
   

The value release expands to

<optimization>speed <debug-symbols>off <inlining>full <runtime-debugging>off

The value profile expands to the same as release, plus:

<profiling>on <debug-symbols>on

Rationale: Runtime debugging is on in debug build so suit expectations of people used various IDEs. It's assumed other folks don't have any specific expectation in this point.

link

Feature which controls how libraries are built.

Allowed values: shared, static

library

For exe and lib main targets, the <library>X feature is equvivalent to putting X in the list of sources. The feature is sometimes more convenient: you can put <library>X in the requirements for a project and it will be linked to all executables.

use

Causes the target referenced by the value of this feature to be constructed and adds it's usage requirements to build properties. The constructed targets are not used in any other way. The primary use case is when you use some library and want it's usage requirements (such as include paths) to be applied, but don't want to link to the library.

dll-path

Specify a path where dynamic libraries should be found at where executable or shared library is run. This feature directly affects binaries with the gcc compiler, allowing them to pick specific libraries, and ignoring all environment settings. On other toolsets, the binary still requires proper environment settings to be run. However, Boost.Build tools which run executables will notice dll-path settings and create this environment automatically.

hardcode-dll-paths

Controls automatic generation of dll-path properties.

Allowed values: off, on When this property is on, usage requirements for each library will include additional dll-path propertry, with the path the the generated library file. This allows to run executables without placing all the dependent libraries to a single location.

Detailed reference

Features and properties

Definitions

A feature is a normalized (toolset-independent) aspect of a build configuration, such as whether inlining is enabled. Feature names may not contain the '>' character.

Each feature in a build configuration has one or more associated values. Feature values for non-free features may not contain the '<', ':', or '=' characters. Feature values for free features may not contain the '<' character.

A property is a (feature,value) pair, expressed as <feature>value.

A subfeature is a feature which only exists in the presence of its parent feature, and whose identity can be derived (in the context of its parent) from its value. A subfeature's parent can never be another subfeature. Thus, features and their subfeatures form a two-level hierarchy.

A value-string for a feature F is a string of the form value-subvalue1-subvalue2...-subvalueN, where value is a legal value for F and subvalue1...subvalueN are legal values of some of F's subfeatures. For example, the properties <toolset>gcc <toolset-version>3.0.1 can be expressed more conscisely using a value-string, as <toolset>gcc-3.0.1.

A property set is a set of properties (i.e. a collection without dublicates), for instance: <toolset>gcc <runtime-link>static.

A property path is a property set whose elements have been joined into a single string separated by slashes. A property path representation of the previous example would be <toolset>gcc/<runtime-link>static.

A build specification is a property set which fully describes the set of features used to build a target.

Property Validity

Feature Attributes

Each feature has a collection of zero or more of the following attributes. Feature attributes are low-level descriptions of how the build system should interpret a feature's values when they appear in a build request. We also refer to the attributes of properties, so that a incidental property, for example, is one whose feature is has the incidental attribute.

• incidental

  Incidental features are assumed not to affect build products at all. As a consequence, the build system may use the same file for targets whose build specification differs only in incidental features. A feature which controls a compiler's warning level is one example of a likely incidental feature.

  Non-incidental features are assumed to affect build products, so the files for targets whose build specification differs in non-incidental features are placed in different directories as described in target paths below.

• propagated

  Features of this kind are propagated to dependencies. That is, if a main target is built using a propagated property, the build systems attempts to use the same property when building any of its dependencies as part of that main target. For instance, when an optimized exectuable is requested, one usually wants it to be linked with optimized libraries. Thus, the <optimization> feature is propagated.

• free

  Most features have a finite set of allowed values, and can only take on a single value from that set in a given build specification. Free features, on the other hand, can have several values at a time and each value can be an arbitrary string. For example, it is possible to have several preprocessor symbols defined simultaneously:

  <define>NDEBUG=1 <define>HAS_CONFIG_H=1
  

  
  
• optional

  An optional feature is a feature which is not required to appear in a build specification. Every non-optional non-free feature has a default value which is used when a value for the feature is not otherwise specified, either in a target's requirements or in the user's build request. [A feature's default value is given by the first value listed in the feature's declaration. -- move this elsewhere - dwa]

• symmetric

  A symmetric feature's default value is not automatically included in build variants. Normally a feature only generates a subvariant directory when its value differs from the value specified by the build variant, leading to an assymmetric subvariant directory structure for certain values of the feature. A symmetric feature, when relevant to the toolset, always generates a corresponding subvariant directory.

• path

  The value of a path feature specifies a path. The path is treated as relative to the directory of Jamfile where path feature is used and is translated appropriately by the build system when the build is invoked from a different directory

• implicit

  Values of implicit features alone identify the feature. For example, a user is not required to write "<toolset>gcc", but can simply write "gcc". Implicit feature names also don't appear in variant paths, although the values do. Thus: bin/gcc/... as opposed to bin/toolset-gcc/.... There should typically be only a few such features, to avoid possible name clashes.

• composite

  Composite features actually correspond to groups of properties. For example, a build variant is a composite feature. When generating targets from a set of build properties, composite features are recursively expanded and added to the build property set, so rules can find them if neccessary. Non-composite non-free features override components of composite features in a build property set.

• link-incompatible

  See below.

• dependency

  The value of dependency feature if a target reference. When used for building of a main target, the value of dependency feature is treated as additional dependency.

  For example, dependency features allow to state that library A depends on library B. As the result, whenever an application will link to A, it will also link to B. Specifying B as dependency of A is different from adding B to the sources of A.

Features which are neither free nor incidental are called base features.

TODO: document active features..

Feature Declaration

rule feature ( name : allowed-values * : attributes * )

Build Variants

Link compatible and incompatible properties

When the build system tries to generate a target (such as library dependency) matching a given build request, it may find that an exact match isn't possible — for example, the target may impose additonal build requirements. We need to determine whether a buildable version of that target can actually be used.

The build request can originate in many ways: it may come directly from the user's command-line, from a dependency of a main target upon a library, or from a dependency of a target upon an executable used to build that target, for example. For each way, there are different rules whether we can use a given subvariant or not. The current rules are described below.

Two property sets are called link-compatible when targets with those property sets can be used interchangably. In turn, two property sets are link compatible when there's no link-incompatible feature which has different values in those property sets.

When building of a main target is requested from a command line or some project, link-compatibility is not considered. When building is requested by other main target, via sources or dependency properties, the requested and actual property sets must be link-compatible, otherwise a warning is produced.

Rationale:Link-compatibility is not considered when main target is requested by a project, because it causes problems in practice. For example, some parts of a project might be single-threaded, while others — multi-threaded. They are not link-compatible, but they are not linked, either. So, there's no need to issue error or warning. The errors used to be generated, and only caused problems.

Definition of property refinement

When a target with certain properties is requested, and that target requires some set of properties, it is needed to find the set of properties to use for building. This process is called property refinement and is performed by these rules

1. If original properties and required properties are not link-compatible, refinement fails.
2. Each property in the required set is added to the original property set
3. If the original property set includes property with a different value of non free feature, that property is removed.

Conditional properties

Sometime it's desirable to apply certain requirements only for specific combination of other properties. For example, one of compilers that you use issues a poinless warning that you want to suppress by passing a command line option to it. You would not want to pass that option to other compilers. Condititional properties allow to do that. Their systax is:

  property ( "," property ) * ":" property

exe hello : hello.cpp : <toolset>yfc:<cxxflags>-disable-pointless-warning ;

Initialization

bjam's first job upon startup is to load the Jam code which implements the build system. To do this, it searches for a file called "boost-build.jam", first in the invocation directory, then in its parent and so forth up to the filesystem root, and finally in the directories specified by the environment variable BOOST_BUILD_PATH. When found, the file is interpreted, and should specify the build system location by calling the boost-build rule:

      rule boost-build ( location ? )

     boost-build build-system ;

The default "bootstrap.jam", after loading some standard definitions, loads two files, which can be provided/customised by user: "site-config.jam" and "user-config.jam".

Locations where those files a search are summarized below:

Command line

The command line may contain:

• Jam options,
• Boost.Build options,
• Command line arguments

Command line arguments

• An argument which does not contain slashes or the "=" symbol is either a value of an implicit feature, or target to be built. It is taken to be value of a feature if appropriate feature exists. Otherwise, it is considered a target id. Special target name "clean" has the same effect as "--clean" option.
• An argument with either slashes or the "=" symbol specifies a number of build request elements. In the simplest form, it's just a set of properties, separated by slashes, which become a single build request element, for example:

  borland/<runtime-link>static
  

  More complex form is used to save typing. For example, instead of

  borland/runtime-link=static borland/runtime-link=dynamic
  

  one can use

  borland/runtime-link=static,dynamic
  

  Exactly, the conversion from argument to build request elements is performed by (1) splitting the argument at each slash, (2) converting each split part into a set of properties and (3) taking all possible combination of the property sets. Each split part should have the either the form

      feature-name=feature-value1[","feature-valueN]*   
  

  or, in case of implict feature

      feature-value1[","feature-valueN;]*   
  

  and will be converted into property set

  <feature-name>feature-value1 .... <feature-name>feature-valueN
  

    target1 debug gcc/runtime-link=dynamic,static
   

Command line options

All of the Boost.Build options start with the "--" prefix. They are described in the following table.

Build request

Build process

Construction of each main target begins with finding properties for this main target. They are found by processing both build request, and target requirements, which give properties needed for the target to build. For example, a given main target might require certian defines, or will not work unless compiled in multithreaded mode. The process of finding properties for main target is described in property refinement.

After that, dependencies (i.e. other main targets) are build recursively. Build request for dependencies is not always equal to those of dependent — certain properties are dropped and user can explicitly specify desired properties for dependencies. See propagated features and target reference for details.

When dependencies are constructed, the dependency graph for this main target and for this property set is created, which describes which files need to be created, on which other files they depend and what actions are needed to construct those files. There's more that one method, and user can define new ones, but usually, this involves generators and target types.

Target type is just a way to classify targets. For example, there are builtin types EXE, OBJ and CPP. Generators are objects that know how to convert between different target type. When a target of a given type must be created, all generators for that type, which can handle needed properties, are found. Each is passed the list of sources, and either fails, or returns a dependency graph. If a generator cannot produce desired type from given sources, it may try to recursively construct types that it can handle from the types is was passed. This allows to try all possible transformations. When all generators are tried, a dependency graph is selected.

Finally, the dependency graph is passed to underlying Boost.Jam program, which runs all actions needed to bring all main targets up-to date. At this step, implicit dependencies are also scanned and accounted for, as described here.

Given a list of targets ids and a build request, building goes this way. First, for each id we obtain the abstract targets corresponding to it. This also loads all necessary projects. If no target id is given, project in the current directory is used. Build request is expanded, and for each resulting property set, the generate method of all targets is called, which yields a list of virtual targets. After that all virtual targets are actualized, and target "all" is set to depend on all created actual targets. Lastly, depending on whether --clean option was given, either target "all" or target "clean" is updated. Generation of virtual target from abstract one is performed as follows:

• For project targets, all of main targets are generated with the same properties. Then all projects referred via "build-project" are generated as well. If it's not possible to refine requested properties with project requirements, the project is skipped.

  It is possible to disable building of certain target using the explicit rule, available in all project modules. The syntax is

      rule explicit ( target-name )
  

  If this rule is invoked on a target, it will be built only when it's explicitly requested on the command line.
• For main target, with several alternatives, one of them is selected as described below. If there's only one alternative, it's used unconditionally.
  1. All main target alternatives which requirements are satisfied by the build request are enumerated.
  2. If there are several such alternatives, the one which longer requirements list is selected.
• For the selected alternative
  1. Each target reference in the source list are recursively constructed.
  2. Properties are refined with alternative's requirements, and active features in the resulting set are executed.
  3. Conditional properties are evaluated.
  4. The dependency graph for the target is constructed in a way which depends on the kind of main target, typically using generators.
• If, when building sources, the properties on recursively created targets are not link-compatibile with build properties, a warning is issued.

Alternative selection

When there are several alternatives, one of them must be selected. The process is as follows:

1. For each alternative condition is defined as the set of base properies in requirements. [Note: it might be better to explicitly specify the condition explicitly, as in conditional requirements].
2. An alternative is viable only if all properties in condition are present in build request.
3. If there's one viable alternative, it's choosen. Otherwise, an attempt is made to find one best alternative. An alternative a is better than another alternative b, iff set of properties in b's condition is stict subset of the set of properities of 'a's condition. If there's one viable alternative, which is better than all other, it's selected. Otherwise, an error is reported.

Generated headers

Usually, Boost.Build handles implicit dependendies completely automatically. For example, for C++ files, all #include statements are found and handled. The only aspect where user help might be needed is implicit dependency on generated files.

By default, Boost.Build handles such dependencies within one main target. For example, assume that main target "app" has two sources, "app.cpp" and "parser.y". The latter source is converted into "parser.c" and "parser.h". Then, if "app.cpp" includes "parser.h", Boost.Build will detect this dependency. Moreover, since "parser.h" will be generated into a build directory, the path to that directory will automatically added to include path.

Making this mechanism work across main target boundaries is possible, but imposes certain overhead. For that reason, if there's implicit dependency on files from other main targets, the <implicit-dependency> feature must be used, for example:

    lib parser : parser.y ;
    exe app : app.cpp : <implicit-dependency>parser ;
   

Generators

To construct a main target with given properties from sources, it is required to create a dependency graph for that main target, which will also include actions to be run. The algorithm for creating the dependency graph is described here.

The fundamental concept is generator. If encapsulates the notion of build tool and is capable to converting a set of input targets into a set of output targets, with some properties. Generator matches a build tool as closely as possible: it works only when the tool can work with requested properties (for example, msvc compiler can't work when requested toolset is gcc), and should produce exactly the same targets as the tool (for example, if Borland's linker produces additional files with debug information, generator should also).

Given a set of generators, the fundamental operation is to construct a target of a given type, with given properties, from a set of targets. That operation is performed by rule generators.construct and the used algorithm is described below.

Selecting and ranking viable generators

Each generator, in addition to target types that it can produce, have attribute that affects its applicability in particular sitiation. Those attributes are:

1. Required properties, which are properties absolutely necessary for the generator to work. For example, generator encapsulating the gcc compiler would have <toolset>gcc as required property.
2. Optional properties, which increase the generators suitability for a particual build.

When trying to construct a target, the first step is to select all possible generators for the requested target type, which required properties are a subset of requested properties. Generators which were already selected up the call stack are excluded. In addition, if any composing generators were selected up the call stack, all other composing generators are ignored (TODO: define composing generators). The found generators assigned a rank, which is the number of optional properties present in requested properties. Finally, generators with highest rank are selected for futher processing.

Running generators

When generators are selected, each is run to produce a list of created targets. This list might include targets which are not of requested types, because generators create the same targets as some tool, and tool's behaviour is fixed. (Note: should specify that in some cases we actually want extra targets). If generator fails, it returns an empty list. Generator is free to call 'construct' again, to convert sources to the types it can handle. It also can pass modified properties to 'constuct'. However, a generator is not allowed to modify any propagated properties, otherwise when actually consuming properties we might discover that the set of propagated properties is different from what was used for building sources.

For all targets which are not of requested types, we try to convert them to requested type, using a second call to construct. This is done in order to support transformation sequences where single source file expands to several later. See this message for details.

Selecting dependency graph

Property adjustment

Because target location is determined by the build system, it is sometimes necessary to adjust properties, in order to not break actions. For example, if there's an action which generates a header, say "a_parser.h", and a source file "a.cpp" which includes that file, we must make everything work as if a_parser.h is generated in the same directory where it would be generated without any subvariants.

Correct property adjustment can be done only after all targets are created, so the approach taken is:

1. When dependency graph is constructed, each action can be assigned a rule for property adjustment.
2. When virtual target is actualized, that rule is run and return the final set of properties. At this stage it can use information of all created virtual targets.

In case of quoted includes, no adjustment can give 100% correct results. If target dirs are not changed by build system, quoted includes are searched in "." and then in include path, while angle includes are searched only in include path. When target dirs are changed, we'd want to make quoted includes to be search in "." then in additional dirs and then in the include path and make angle includes be searched in include path, probably with additional paths added at some position. Unless, include path already has "." as the first element, this is not possible. So, either generated headers should not be included with quotes, or first element of include path should be ".", which essentially erases the difference between quoted and angle includes. Note: there only way to get "." as include path into compiler command line is via verbatim compiler option. In all other case, Boost.Build will convert "." into directory where it occurs.

Transformations cache

Last modified: Oct 31, 2003

© Copyright Vladimir Prus 2002-2003. Permission to copy, use, modify, sell and distribute this document is granted provided this copyright notice appears in all copies. This document is provided ``as is'' without express or implied warranty, and with no claim as to its suitability for any purpose.