Including Relevant Boost Libraries with C++ Source (Using Visual Studio)

Question

I have a project I\'m working on (for school) that I\'m digging into the Boost libraries for the solutions. I need some way to distribute the required Boost source code with

Answer 1

Based on your comment that you're using regex, here's what you do: download the 'normal' boost distribution zip file. Unzip it somewhere. Go to libs/regex/src. Copy and paste all the .cpp files in that directory to your project directory. Add them to your Visual Studio project (right-click, 'add' -> 'existing item'). Then go to boost/regex and copy everything in there (the header files) to your project directory (including the subdirectories). Change all the includes in your own .cpp and .h files from #include to "regex.hpp" so that it includes the headers from your local directory and not those that were installed system-wide. Make sure to remove the system-wide include path from your project settings like I said in my last post.

Then, compile your code. You'll get a number of 'missing include file' errors because regex depends on other boost libraries. Repeat the whole process: go to boost/xxx where xxx is the library that regex is looking for. You can deduce the library from the error message. Copy everything that the compiler asks for to your own project directory. You may need to fiddle a bit with your directory layout before it works. It's really a step by step approach, where every step is the same: identify the missing file, copy it over, see if that include is found and fixed, and continue with the next step. This is boring work I'm afraid.

You could automate this all with bcp but for a one-off project like a school project I wouldn't bother; only if you think you'll have future projects that will require you to deliver a self-contained zipfile.