How do I build Boost from github? - boost

Question

I git clone boost latest source code on master branch from Github. I tried to build it but failed,
$ ./bootstrap.sh
./bootstrap.sh: line 188: ./tools/build/src/engine/build.sh: No such file or directory
-n Building Boost.Build engine with toolset ...
Failed to build Boost.Build build engine
Consult 'bootstrap.log' for more details
The content of bootstrap.log
1 ./bootstrap.sh: line 218: cd: ./tools/build/src/engine: No such file or directory
Question:
I understand there is no ./tools/build/src/engine, how do I solve this? I also noted that
-n Building Boost.Build engine with toolset ...
however, bootstrap.sh doesn't have -n option.
My develop environment:
MacOS X10.9 Xcode5.1

Answer 1

The current documentation for building directly from the Git repo is at Getting Started. Basically there are some additional steps to create the include directory tree and to run the build itself. NOTE, please also make sure you use the b2 command from the cloned repo. Not whatever you might have prebuilt in your system.

Answer 2

To checkout latest version of Boost libraries from GitHub do the following:
Checkout Boost super-project (only minimum required): git clone --single-branch --branch master --depth=1 https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git.
cd boost/
Checkout all the submodules (only minimum required): git submodule update --init --recursive --remote --no-fetch --depth=1.
If an error like following occured:
Cloning into 'libs/predef'...
remote: Counting objects: 243, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (163/163), done.
remote: Total 243 (delta 128), reused 126 (delta 70), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (243/243), 142.82 KiB | 209.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (128/128), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
fatal: Needed a single revision
Unable to find current origin/master revision in submodule path 'libs/predef'
then use script (reget.bash):
#! /usr/bin/env bash -vex
rm -rf $3/$1 .git/modules/$1
git clone --depth=1 --branch=$2 --single-branch --separate-git-dir .git/modules/$1 https://github.com/boostorg/$1 $3/$1
where $1 is predef, $2 is master, $3 is libs, i.e. run bash reget.bash predef master libs.
An error can occur many times for different submodules, just use above script to clean up unrecoverable git error and to checkout latest commit for failed submodule. Then reuse git submodule update --init --recursive --remote --no-fetch --depth=1.
After complete checking out of all the submodules, build b2 executable. For clang it looks like:
export CC=clang
export CFLAGS="-march=native -Ofast"
export CXX=clang++
export CXXFLAGS="-march=native -Ofast"
bash bootstrap.sh --with-toolset=clang
You have obtained b2 executable. Use it to build whole Boost:
sudo ./b2 -j`nproc` toolset=clang --build-dir=/tmp/build-boost --without-mpi install
ADDITIONAL:
If you want to clone only HEAD of boost itself and HEADS of all the its submodules, then you may use following Lua script (tested on https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git repository):
-- mkdir boost ; cd boost ; lua ../git-submodules-clone-HEAD.lua https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git .
local module_url = arg[1] or 'https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git'
local module = arg[2] or module_url:match('.+/([_%d%a]+)%.git')
local branch = arg[3] or 'master'
function execute(command)
print('# ' .. command)
return os.execute(command)
end
-- execute('rm -rf ' .. module)
if not execute('git clone --single-branch --branch master --depth=1 ' .. module_url .. ' ' .. module) then
io.stderr:write('can\'t clone repository from ' .. module_url .. ' to ' .. module .. '\n')
return 1
end
-- cd $module ; git submodule update --init --recursive --remote --no-fetch --depth=1
execute('mkdir -p ' .. module .. '/.git/modules')
assert(io.input(module .. '/.gitmodules'))
local lines = {}
for line in io.lines() do
table.insert(lines, line)
end
local submodule
local path
local submodule_url
for _, line in ipairs(lines) do
local submodule_ = line:match('^%[submodule %"([_%d%a]-)%"%]$')
if submodule_ then
submodule = submodule_
path = nil
submodule_url = nil
else
local path_ = line:match('^%s*path = (.+)$')
if path_ then
path = path_
else
submodule_url = line:match('^%s*url = (.+)$')
end
if submodule and path and submodule_url then
-- execute('rm -rf ' .. path)
local git_dir = module .. '/.git/modules/' .. path:match('^.-/(.+)$')
-- execute('rm -rf ' .. git_dir)
execute('mkdir -p $(dirname "' .. git_dir .. '")')
if not execute('git clone --depth=1 --single-branch --branch=' .. branch .. ' --separate-git-dir ' .. git_dir .. ' ' .. module_url .. '/' .. submodule_url .. ' ' .. module .. '/' .. path) then
io.stderr:write('can\'t clone submodule ' .. submodule)
return 1
end
path = nil
submodule_url = nil
end
end
end

Answer 3

I really missed some important part of the documentation: .\b2 headers. So here follows all I've done to build thread, chrono and date-time, both release and debug, both static and shared, from version 1.60.0, cloning from the GitHub repo (in a Windows machine):
git clone --recursive https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git
cd boost
git checkout boost-1.60.0
git submodule update
bootstrap.bat
.\b2.exe headers
.\b2.exe variant=release,debug link=static,shared address-model=32 architecture=x86 --with-thread --with-chrono --with-date_time --stagedir=stage\win32 stage
.\b2.exe variant=release,debug link=static,shared address-model=64 architecture=x86 --with-thread --with-chrono --with-date_time --stagedir=stage\x64 stage
Don't forget the:
.\b2.exe headers

Answer 4

I had exactly the same problem. The shortest answer is that, tools/build.git is missing. https://github.com/boostorg/build.git. Simply do a git submodule update --recursive --remote on the directory. This will download the missing tools/build and other depending directories.
Note, many more submodules would be correspondingly downloaded apart from the build submodule.