wiki:TryModBoost

Version 24 (modified by Beman Dawes, 9 years ago) ( diff )

--

Getting Started with Modular Boost

Prerequisites

A GUI Git client such as TortoiseGIT may be useful for routine work, but is not required.

Choose a protocol for cloning

The Boost super-project and libraries on GitHub support cloning via HTTPS or SSH protocols. SSH is often used by developers, but HTTPS may be required by some corporate firewalls and for read-only access. To use HTTPS instead of SSH, replace git@github.com:boostorg/boost.git in the examples below with https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git.

Authentication

The Boost super-project and libraries have been set up using relative URLs, so whichever protocol you use in the git clone command will determine how subsequent access to the super-project and libraries is authenticated.

Line endings

The Boost super-project and libraries ensure correct handling of line endings regardless of platform by supplying a .gitattributes file. However, you may also want to set git config options for managing line endings:

On OS X, Linux, and other POSIX-like systems:

git config --global core.autocrlf input

On Windows:

git config --global core.autocrlf true

That sets the core.autocrlf option globally, so only needs to be done once. For more on line endings, see GitHub Dealing with line endings.

Installing Modular Boost

From the command line on Windows:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:boostorg/boost.git modular-boost
cd modular-boost
.\bootstrap
.\b2 headers

On POSIX-like operating systems:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:boostorg/boost.git modular-boost
cd modular-boost
./bootstrap.sh
./b2 headers

The b2 headers step creates the boost sub-directory hierarchy and populates it with links to the headers in the include sub-directories of the individual projects.

Experimenting

If you want to build the separately compiled Boost libraries, run the usual b2 command. For Windows:

.\b2

For POSIX-like systems:

./b2

If b2 isn't already in your path, you might want to add it now.

Testing is done just the way it has always been done. For example,

cd libs/system/test
b2

should run the tests for Boost.system, all of which should pass.

Submodules

You might want to review the git submodule command at this point, since understanding how to work with submodules is critical to working with the modular Boost repositories.

Developing

Checking out a particular branch

The clone operation above leaves the individual libraries in the modular-boost local repository in a detached state that is not very useful and can result in data loss. So the first thing you want to do is switch a library you want to modify to the branch you want to work on. For example, if you want to do some maintenance on the develop branch of mylib, do this:

cd modular-boost/libs/mylib
git checkout develop
git branch -vv
git pull

git branch -vv is just to reassure yourself you are tracking the remote repo. If not, you have some problem, such as a very old version git.

{{{git pull}} ensures the checkout is up to date.

You are now ready to start regular maintenance! See Getting Started with Modular Boost Library Maintenance.

Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.