Helper Documentation for Boost

Overview

Boost helper documentation aims at supporting local, ad hoc, Boost installations on various platforms.

As a matter of fact, on many platforms (like e.g., CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, MacOS), the native Boost packages often lag behind the latest releases of Boost.

Moreover, on those platforms, it often happens that Boost has been built with outdated Python versions. For instance, on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, (the latest long-term support release as of November 2021), the native Boost package comes in version 1.71.0 (lagging over two years behind the newest Boost releases) with support for Python 3.8.10; whereas on the same platform, Python is available as 3.8.12 (the latest stable version of the 3.8 branch of Python as of November 2021). Hence, when one attempts to build some software on those platforms, they often end up with inconsistencies in Python versions.

This README therefore intends to explain how to build one’s own version of Boost, and use them to build other packages.

References

• Boost
  • Boost releases
  • Boost source tar-balls
  • Boost from sources on MacOS
  • Boost from sources on Ubuntu
• OpenTREP, a piece of software making extensive use of Boost, including its Python libraries (hence a good use case to make sure everything works correctly)
• Python
  • Python virtual environment with pyenv and pipenv

Installation

Python

• Install, with pyenv, the same version as installed by the native package manager of your environment. For instance, as of November 2021:
  • 3.9.8 on MacOS:

    user@mac$ brew install python@3.9
    user@mac$ $ ls -lFh /usr/local/Cellar/python\@3.9/3.9.8/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin/python3.9
    -rwxr-xr-x  1 user  staff 17K Mar 12 11:34 /usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.8/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin/python3.9*
    user@mac$ pyenv install 3.9.8
    user@mac$ pyenv global 3.9.8 && pip install -U pip pipenv
    user@mac$ python --version
    Python 3.9.8
    

  • 3.10 on Fedora 35:

    user@f31$ sudo install -y python
    user@f31$ rpm -ql python|grep "bin/python3.10$"
    /usr/bin/python3.10
    user@f31$ python3.10 --version
    Python 3.10.0
    

Boost

• Install dependencies
  • On Ubuntu:

    $ sudo apt-get update
    $ sudo apt-get install build-essential g++ python-dev autotools-dev libicu-dev libbz2-dev libboost-all-dev
    

• Prepare the build and install directories:

  $ BOOST_VER="1_77_0"
  $ BOOST_VER_DOT="$(echo ${BOOST_VER}|sed -e s/_/./g)"
  $ sudo mkdir -p /opt/boost/archives && sudo chown -R ${USER} /opt/boost
  $ cd /opt/boost
  $ wget "https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/release/${BOOST_VER_DOT}/source/boost_${BOOST_VER}.tar.bz2"
  $ tar jxf "boost_${BOOST_VER}.tar.bz2" && mv "boost_${BOOST_VER}.tar.bz2" archives
  

• (Optionally, if needed, e.g., on versions up to 1.71,) Inject the new boost/timer/progress_display.hpp header file:

  $ cd /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}
  $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/boostorg/timer/c221a60102ed618a82116f84407de3f1713aa10f/include/boost/timer/progress_display.hpp -O boost/timer/progress_display.hpp
  

• Initialize the build environment
  • For a standard installation in /usr/local:

    $ cd /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}
    $ ./bootstrap.sh
    

  • To override potentially installed Boost components in /usr (for instance for Travis CI virtual machines):

    $ sudo apt-get remove libboost-all-dev
    $ cd /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}
    $ ./bootstrap.sh --prefix=/usr/
    

• If needed, specify the Python location in the project-config.jam file, which may look like the following
  • On Ubuntu:

    import python ;
    if ! [ python.configured ]
    {
    using python : 3.8 : "/usr" ;
    }
    

  • On MacOS:

    import python ;
    if ! [ python.configured ]
    {
    using python
        : 3.9     # Version
        : "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.8/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9" # Python path
        : "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.8/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/include/python3.9" # include path
        : "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.8/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9" # lib path
        ;
    }
    

• Build Boost (it will take a few minutes, up to an hour, even on some modern computers, and it is CPU intensive): ```bash $ ./b2 cxxflags=”-std=c++14” … common.copy /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}/stage/lib/libboost_wave.a common.copy /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}/stage/lib/cmake/boost_wave-1.72.0/libboost_wave-variant-static.cmake clang-darwin.compile.c++ bin.v2/libs/graph/build/clang-darwin-11.0/release/threading-multi/visibility-hidden/graphml.o clang-darwin.compile.c++ bin.v2/libs/graph/build/clang-darwin-11.0/release/threading-multi/visibility-hidden/read_graphviz_new.o clang-darwin.link.dll bin.v2/libs/graph/build/clang-darwin-11.0/release/threading-multi/visibility-hidden/libboost_graph.dylib boost-install.generate-cmake-variant- bin.v2/libs/graph/build/clang-darwin-11.0/release/threading-multi/visibility-hidden/libboost_graph-variant-shared.cmake common.copy /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}/stage/lib/libboost_graph.dylib common.copy /opt/boost/boost_${BOOST_VER}/stage/lib/cmake/boost_graph-${BOOST_VER_DOT}/libboost_graph-variant-shared.cmake …updated 1681 targets…

The Boost C++ Libraries were successfully built!

* Install Boost:
```bash
$ sudo ./b2 cxxflags="-std=c++14" install
boost-install.generate-cmake-config- bin.v2/libs/graph/build/install/boost_graph-config.cmake
boost-install.generate-cmake-config-version- bin.v2/libs/graph/build/install/boost_graph-config-version.cmake
common.copy /usr/local/lib/cmake/boost_graph-${BOOST_VER_DOT}/boost_graph-config-version.cmake
common.copy /usr/local/lib/cmake/boost_graph-${BOOST_VER_DOT}/boost_graph-config.cmake
...updated 14520 targets...

• Check the installation
  • On Ubuntu:

    user@mac$ grep "define BOOST_VERSION " /usr/local/include/boost/version.hpp
    #define BOOST_VERSION 107700
    user@mac$ ldd -r -d /usr/local/lib/libboost_python38.so | grep -v "^undefined"
    linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffddacd5000)
    libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f9f03dc5000)
    libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f9f03daa000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f9f03d87000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f9f03b95000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f9f03a46000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f9f03ffa000)
    

  • On MacOS:

    user@mac$ grep "define BOOST_VERSION " /usr/local/include/boost/version.hpp
    #define BOOST_VERSION 107700
    user@mac$ otool -L /usr/local/lib/libboost_python39.dylib
    /usr/local/lib/libboost_python39.dylib:
        @rpath/libboost_python39.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0)
        /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.6.0)
        /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1281.0.0)