id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
2181	Boost build issue on Windows/MinGW	tristen_e@…	Vladimir Prus	"bjam link=static --toolset=gcc

If I build boost static libraries on windows with the intention of using them with the GCC toolset, the resulting libraries are created with a .lib extension:

libboost_date_time-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_filesystem-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_graph-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_iostreams-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_prg_exec_monitor-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_program_options-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_regex-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_serialization-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_signals-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_system-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_test_exec_monitor-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_thread-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_unit_test_framework-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib
libboost_wave-mgw34-mt-1_35.lib

Subsequently, after compiling my code using these libraries, I get a run-time error saying the relevant DLL wasn't found.

However, if I rename all of the boost libraries from .lib files to .a files and compile again, the run-time errors go away and the program runs fine. The executable size increases approximately by the size of the static library too.

I feel the solution to this problem is to have BJAM generate the set of static libraries with an extension of .a instead of .lib under windows if the GCC toolset was specified.

ie:

bjam link=static --toolset=gcc

should result in the following files on Windows:

libboost_date_time-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_filesystem-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_graph-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_iostreams-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_prg_exec_monitor-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_program_options-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_regex-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_serialization-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_signals-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_system-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_test_exec_monitor-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_thread-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_unit_test_framework-mgw34-mt-1_35.a
libboost_wave-mgw34-mt-1_35.a

Regards
Tristen"	Feature Requests	closed	Boost 1.42.0	build	Boost 1.35.0	Problem	fixed	win32 gcc static link mingw