I'm having difficulties generating the correct boost .lib file to compile with a VS project I've been given. It appears that after performing the complete build installation using 'b2.exe' from VS2010 command prompt I'm only able to generate the boost library files that contain the 'lib' prefix.
When I come to compile my project I'm getting the following error message:
"error LNK1104: cannot open file 'boost_signals-vc90-mt-1_47.lib'"
After going through the lib folder I can see that my boost build has only generated 'libboost_signals-vc90-mt-1_47.lib'
The boost documentation gives the following information about the lib prefix:
lib
Prefix: except on Microsoft Windows, every Boost library name begins with this string. On Windows, only ordinary static libraries use the lib prefix; import libraries and DLLs do not.
So far I've attempted the following build options for the msvc-9.0 toolset:
'build-type=complete'
'link=static,shared'
Any advice on how I may be able to generate the required .lib file would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks.
link=static should be used whenever you're linking to static version of boost library.
link=shared - should be used whenever you're linking dynamically to boost. It will add extra dependencies on boost dll's.
You can also use link=static,shared to build both versions - static and dynamic.
Define 'BOOST_ALL_DYN_LINK' in project controls how you link to boost.
If it's defined - it's dynamic linking, if not defined - it's static linking.
Related
My library has minimal, straightforward CMake code with the pertinent lines
add_library(MyLib <sources>)
install(
TARGETS MyLib
LIBRARY DESTINATION ${destination}/lib
RUNTIME DESTINATION ${destination}/lib
COMPONENT Libraries)
install(
FILES mylib.h
DESTINATION ${destination}/include
COMPONENT Headers)
When executed under Windows, the system generates mylib.dll in ...\build\Release, and mylib.lib and mylib.exp (what's that?) in ...\build\lib\Release. It only installs mylib.dll.
My application has minimal, straightforward CMake code to search for my library:
find_path(MyLib_INCLUDE_DIR mylib.h)
find_library(MyLib_LIBRARIES NAMES MyLib)
include(FindPackageHandleStandardArgs)
find_package_handle_standard_args(MyLib DEFAULT_MSG MyLib_LIBRARIES MyLib_INCLUDE_DIR)
Which works under Linux, but under Windows results in
-- Could NOT find MyLib (missing: MyLib_LIBRARIES)
From experimentation I know that this error occurs whenever there is only a .DLL file, and no associated .LIB import library.
Shall I correct MyLib to install mylib.lib? How?
Or is it possible to modify my application so that it is satisfied with mylib.dll only? How?
Research done so far
This is not about static vs dynamic linking (DLL and LIB files - what and why?, cmake link against dll/lib): I want dynamic linking; if a .LIB file is required, it has nothing to do with static linking.
This link cmake : shared library : how to get the .lib name instead of .dll name? may be pertinent, but is not explicit enough. Two other questions CMake generated VS project expecting lib instead of dll, Linking dll/lib to a cmake project seem related, but have no answer.
Command install classifies .lib file for a shared library as ARCHIVE. This is explicitly stated in the documentation:
For DLL platforms (all Windows-based systems including Cygwin), the DLL import library is treated as an ARCHIVE target.
So you need to add ARCHIVE clause to install() for install .lib file as well:
install(
TARGETS MyLib
ARCHIVE DESTINATION ${destination}/lib
LIBRARY DESTINATION ${destination}/lib
RUNTIME DESTINATION ${destination}/bin
COMPONENT Libraries)
Not also, that RUNTIME DESTINATION is usually specified as bin, the same as destination for executables. This helps the executables on Windows to locate the shared libraries (.dll).
I have a CMake file which does this:
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS system filesystem)
add_library(MyModule MODULE main.cpp)
target_include_directories(MyModule PUBLIC ${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries(MyModule Boost::system Boost::filesystem)
I'm using VS 2017 as my generator. When I generate the project file with cmake, it finds boost_system-vc141-mt-1_63.lib and I can see that it is in the linking rules of the vcxproj. However, when I try to compile I get this error:
LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'libboost_system-vc140-mt-1_63.lib
Note the different generators (vc140 vs vc141). I know my compiler has output the right values because I built boost from source, so I tried to just rename vc141 to vc140, but the error stayed the same. I also confirmed that vc140 is not referenced in the project file.
What's going on? How can I force boost to link to the correct version?
When building with Visual Studio, boost has some pragma statements which do the linking for you. This is called "Auto-linking" and it over-rides any command-line arguments you may be passing to the linker.
The solution is to define BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB. This can be done in two ways:
In source code before including boost headers as #define BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB.
It could be added to your cmake file as: add_definitions("-DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB").
As of CMake 3.5: Use the disable_autolinking imported target:
target_link_libraries(MyModule Boost::system Boost::filesystem Boost::disable_autolinking)
I followed many tutorials to get boost installed, firstyly I downloaded boost and added path with:
path=%path%;
c:\program files (x86)\code block\mingw\bin
secondly I ran
bootstrap.bat gcc
and then
b2 toolset=gcc
but there is no such lib installed as UUID which I really need to my project. Is there any way to make it happen as I haven't found any specific help among all those topics and I'm getting really confused. I'm working on win10 if that makes any difference.
Did you read documentation?
Boost UUID library is header-only library. See Configuration:
The library does not require building or any special configuration to be used.
So you have to download boost library and unpack it to some place in your disk (for example to c:\boost). Path to boost library will be c:\boost\boost_1_62_0. Then you have to specify the compiler the place where the boost library is located. It is compiler or IDE specific way. But the common way is to use "Additional Include Directories" option of compiler. It is -I for GCC and /I for MS VC++. Last step is to write include directive in your c++ code. For example:
#include <boost/uuid/uuid.hpp>
For code example see Example and files in boost/libs/uuid/test/ folder
I used Cmake gui and the FindBoost module to add Boost as a dependency in my visual studio 2010 c++ project. I set the parameter that tells FindBoost to use the win32 thread library instead of pthread (because I'm running on windows). When i build my code, all the calls to boost libraries compile fine, but boost itself is having a compile error. its failing on
boost\thread\pthread\mutex.hpp line 11
cannot open include file: 'pthread.h': No such file or directory
If I could make it use the win32 library, the mutex.hpp (and all the other files) dont call pthread.h
How do I build so that it uses boost\thread\win32 ?
here is the section of my cmakelists.txt
# include boost
set(BOOST_ROOT "E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0")
add_definitions( -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB )
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS thread system)
if(Boost_FOUND)
message(STATUS "Boost was found, Success!")
# telling it to use win32 threads not pthreads
set(Boost_THREADAPI "win32")
INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})
LINK_DIRECTORIES(${Boost_LIBRARY_DIRS})
endif()
CMake comes with a module called FindBoost which i used, and it correctly found the boost directory and set the following
Boost_INCLUDE_DIR
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/
Boost_LIBRARY_DIR
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib
Boost_SYSTEM_LIBRARY_DEBUG
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib/boost_system-vc100-mt-gd-1_58.lib
Boost_SYSTEM_LIBRARY_RELEASE
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib/boost_system-vc100-mt-1_58.lib
Boost_THREAD_LIBRARY_DEBUG
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib/boost_system-vc100-mt-gd-1_58.lib
Boost_THREAD_LIBRARY_RELEASE
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib/boost_thread-vc100-mt-1_58.lib
visual studio project settings
C/C++ -> General -> Additional Include Directories:
...bunch of my other dependencies
E:\boost_1_58_0\boost_1_58_0
Linker -> General -> Additional Library Directories
E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib;E:/boost_1_58_0/boost_1_58_0/stage/lib/$(Configuration);%(AdditionalLibraryDirectories)
Linker -> General -> Link Library Dependencies - No
Linker -> General -> Use LIbrary Dependency Inputs - No
Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies:
...bunch of my other .libs
boost_thread.lib
boost_system.lib
I fixed the error but I had try what I call the "dumb" way. The "smart" way didnt work. Smart way was reviewing several times the cmakelists code and the visual studio include library settings. i even did a clean and rebuild boost using b2 and manually set threading=multi and link=static because i thought maybe the library just wasnt built correct.
Finally i gave up and tried the dumb way: I cut and pasted the pthread folder and moved it somewhere else, so that it was no longer in the boost/thread folder, only the win32 folder.
I wish i tried it so long ago, because i didnt think that the compilation error would be due to my project's code, but rather an environment setting in the include and linking. But sure enough i got an error showing that in one of my project's files i was directly trying to include that mutex.hpp from the pthread folder. i didnt write this code (its open source) so i couldnt have exactly known, but still i want to slap myself
#include <boost/thread.hpp>
#include <boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp>
changing pthread to win32 made the error go away.
I'm working on a DLL project in VS 2010, I want to use boost mutex in some part of my code. but when I compile project to release final DLL, I get this linkage error:
LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'libboost_date_time-vc100-mt-1_49.lib'
I've already compiled boost with this command:
bjam install --toolset=msvc variant=release link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static
& I've a file named libboost_date_time-vc100-mt-s-1_49.lib, when I change configuration type of my project from Dynamic Linked Library (DLL) to Static Library, the project builds successfully, but I need to release only as a DLL file (& my final DLL CAN NOT have any dependency to other external DLLs). I know the problem causes by compilation of boost, but I don't know how should I recompile it
Any guideline?
Check that you link the runtime-library statically (Configuration properties-->C/C++-->Code generation-->Runtime library: Multi-threaded (/MT).
Otherwise, link CRT and boost dynamically. For this purpose build boost like this:
bjam --toolset=msvc variant=release link=shared threading=multi runtime-link=shared
IMO, you built the boost library just fine : you used link=static which means you would like to emit static library (and not a DLL) and since you would like to have standalone deployment , you specified runtime-link=static meaning you link against MS C/C++ run time as static libraries (e.g. the code for printf() will be embedded in your final library and not be referenced to msvcr100.dll)
Please take a look at the picture below, make sure to set the full path of the directory where your boost library resides under Additional Library Dependencies
I fixed my error "Error LNK1104 cannot open file 'libboost_locale-vc142-mt-gd-x32-1_73.lib'" in a DLL project, which I described in this issue on boost' github by installing the boost library using vcpkg.
Install vcpkg. Then write .\vcpkg install boost. You can see how it's done in the video: https://youtu.be/b7SdgK7Y510 . He's not installing the boost library but the process is exactly the same.
This is all for Windows and Visual Studio's toolset, of course.