Installing Boost Library on Unix variants

Downloading boost source files

Goto to official Boost website. And download the latest version of boost available.

Extracting boost

Open the tar ball and extract to any folder. In my case it's Downloads folder. Once you extract boost it will create a folder like so Downloads/boost_1_67_0.

Note: Your folder may vary depending on the version of boost you downloaded.
Since I downloaded boost_1_67_0 my extracted folder is named accordingly.

Long story short just run these command

./bootstrap.sh  --with-python=/usr/bin/python3.6 --prefix=<where/to/install> 
./b2 --layout=versioned variant=debug link=static threading=multi install

Bootstraping boost

cd ./boost_1_67_0
./bootstrap.sh --prefix=/home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0       # --prefix=/path/to/install/boost

./bootstrap.sh takes bunch of arguments to view all the arguments just type
./bootstrap.sh --help. --prefix option is used to specify that we want to install boost in specified directory and not to system directory (And installing it by explicitely specifying --prefix is the RECOMMANDED way!)

If you execute just ./bootstrap.sh then it will be configured to install into system directory (Which again is not recommanded, but it's your choice.)

After you have finished executing project-config.jam file will be generated in to current working directory (i.e., Downloads/boost_1_67_0/project-config.jam in my case.)

Here you can see contents of my project-config.jam file.

# Boost.Build Configuration
# Automatically generated by bootstrap.sh

import option ;
import feature ;

# Compiler configuration. This definition will be used unless
# you already have defined some toolsets in your user-config.jam
# file.
if ! gcc in [ feature.values <toolset> ]
{
      using gcc ; 
}

project : default-build <toolset>gcc ;

# Python configuration
import python ;
if ! [ python.configured ]
{
      using python : 2.7 : /usr ;
}

# List of --with-<library> and --without-<library>
# options. If left empty, all libraries will be built.
# Options specified on the command line completely
# override this variable.
libraries =  ;

# These settings are equivivalent to corresponding command-line
# options.
option.set prefix : /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0 ;
option.set exec-prefix : /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0 ;
option.set libdir : /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/lib ;
option.set includedir : /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/include ;

# Stop on first error
option.set keep-going : false ;

After bootstraping you will find that two more executable are generated in current directory b2 and bjam. Both the executable are essentially the same executable with different name

Downloads
      └── boost_1_67_0
            ├── b2
            ├── bin.v2
            ├── bjam
            ├── boost
            ├── boost-build.jam
            ├── boostcpp.jam
            ├── boost.css
            ├── boost.png
            ├── bootstrap.bat
            ├── bootstrap.log
            ├── bootstrap.sh
            ├── doc
            ├── index.htm
            ├── index.html
            ├── INSTALL
            ├── Jamroot
            ├── libs
            ├── LICENSE_1_0.txt
            ├── more
            ├── project-config.jam
            ├── rst.css
            ├── status
            └── tools

Installing boost

./b2 install --prefix=/home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0

After executing above command you will see that you have include and lib folder created in your prefix path.

Note: ./b2 can take any of the two option install and stage. And ./b2 is same as ./b2 stage. For more information type ./b2 --help.

Also note that by default both static and dynamic libraries are build if you want only specific library you can specify that. For more information type ./b2 --help

Compiling and linking

Most of the Boost source is header only so, there is no need to link them externally just provide proper path to header file and you are good to go.

Certain files requires both compiling and linking. If you choose to link static library then its very easy, but for dynamic library you need few extra steps.

Compiling program that use header only boost files

// test.cpp
#include <boost/lambda/lambda.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
    using namespace boost::lambda;
    typedef std::istream_iterator<int> in;

    std::for_each(
        in(std::cin), in(), std::cout << (_1 * 3) << " " );
}

g++ -I /home/preet/Downloads/boost_1_67_0/boost/ -o test test.cpp
echo 1 2 3 | ./test

Linking static library

//test.cpp
#include <boost/regex.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string line;
    boost::regex pat( "^Subject: (Re: |Aw: )*(.*)" );

    while (std::cin)
    {
        std::getline(std::cin, line);
        boost::smatch matches;
        if (boost::regex_match(line, matches, pat))
            std::cout << matches[2] << std::endl;
    }
}

g++ -I /home/preet/Downloads/boost_1_67_0/ -o main main.cpp -L /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/lib/ -lboost_regex

Note: If you invoke above command and you have both static and dynamic library then compiler will link any of the library. If compiler links static library then your program will run fine. But if compiler links dynamic library then may be your program will not run and it will throw runtime error.
Because your dynamic linker is unable to link dynamic library at runtime. We will see how to fix this.

So, for linking static library execute following command.

g++ -I /home/preet/Downloads/boost_1_67_0/ -o main main.cpp /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/lib/libboost_regex.a

Linking dynamic library

g++ -I /home/preet/Downloads/boost_1_67_0/ -o main main.cpp /home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/lib/libboost_regex.so

This will compile your program but if your try to run it, it will throw an error, because during compilation we said we are going to use dynamic library so compiler was happy, but during runtime when program is requesting for dynamic library, dynamic linker is not able to locate our dynamic library (here libboost_regex.so).

And it makes sense because we only compiled Boost from source, but we never told dynamic linker that you must scan prefix/lib path as well because we have our boost's dynamic libraries build there.

So, let's inform dynamic linker about our dynamic libraries that we built.

cd /etc/ld.so.conf.d/
sudo echo "/home/preet/devenv/boost_1_67_0/lib" > boost.conf
sudo ldconfig -v        # -v => verbose

Close and reopen the terminal. And now if you try to run your program it will run fine.

Test your program

To: George Shmidlap
From: Rita Marlowe
Subject: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
---
See subject.

Example shown here are taken directly from Boost official website.
For more details check out this link.
Dynamic libraries and ldconfig

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 304 Commits
Data structure and algorithm in c++ Mark (source code)		Data structure and algorithm in c++ Mark (source code)
2Ddsu.cpp		2Ddsu.cpp
2_largest_in_linear_time.cpp		2_largest_in_linear_time.cpp
BST.cpp		BST.cpp
LRUCache.cpp		LRUCache.cpp
LeetcodeHelper.h		LeetcodeHelper.h
Queue.cpp		Queue.cpp
README.md		README.md
SinglyLinkedList.cpp		SinglyLinkedList.cpp
Stack.cpp		Stack.cpp
_config.yml		_config.yml
all_possible_ways_of_coin_change.cpp		all_possible_ways_of_coin_change.cpp
articulation_point.cpp		articulation_point.cpp
augment_dfs_iterative.cpp		augment_dfs_iterative.cpp
bellman_ford.cpp		bellman_ford.cpp
bfs_and_dfs.cpp		bfs_and_dfs.cpp
binary_gcd.cpp		binary_gcd.cpp
binary_lifting(LCA).cpp		binary_lifting(LCA).cpp
binary_search_in_sorted_rotated_array.cpp		binary_search_in_sorted_rotated_array.cpp
bipartite_matching_undirected.cpp		bipartite_matching_undirected.cpp
bridges_undirected_graph.cpp		bridges_undirected_graph.cpp
catalan.cpp		catalan.cpp
change_base.cpp		change_base.cpp
chinese_remainder_therem.cpp		chinese_remainder_therem.cpp
closest_pair.cpp		closest_pair.cpp
coin_change(ways_to_change).cpp		coin_change(ways_to_change).cpp
coin_change_matrix.cpp		coin_change_matrix.cpp
coin_change_ways(space optimised).cpp		coin_change_ways(space optimised).cpp
coin_row_problem.cpp		coin_row_problem.cpp
connected_component.cpp		connected_component.cpp
counting_sort.cpp		counting_sort.cpp
create_object_without_calling_ctor.cpp		create_object_without_calling_ctor.cpp
detect_cycle_in_directed_graph.cpp		detect_cycle_in_directed_graph.cpp
detect_cycle_in_undirected_graph.cpp		detect_cycle_in_undirected_graph.cpp
dfs_recursive.cpp		dfs_recursive.cpp
difference_array.cpp		difference_array.cpp
difference_method.cpp		difference_method.cpp
dijkstra.cpp		dijkstra.cpp
document_distance.cpp		document_distance.cpp
edge_classification_directed_dfs.cpp		edge_classification_directed_dfs.cpp
efficient_segment_tree.cpp		efficient_segment_tree.cpp
english_ruler.cpp		english_ruler.cpp
euclid_gcd.cpp		euclid_gcd.cpp
extended_euclid.cpp		extended_euclid.cpp
factorial_of_large_numbers.cpp		factorial_of_large_numbers.cpp
fast_is_prime.cpp		fast_is_prime.cpp
fenwick.cpp		fenwick.cpp
fenwick_tree_range_add_point_query.cpp		fenwick_tree_range_add_point_query.cpp
fenwick_tree_range_update_range_query.cpp		fenwick_tree_range_update_range_query.cpp
fib_logn.cpp		fib_logn.cpp
floyd_warshall.cpp		floyd_warshall.cpp
graph.cpp		graph.cpp
graph_adjacency_matrix.cpp		graph_adjacency_matrix.cpp
gray_code.cpp		gray_code.cpp
gray_code.py		gray_code.py
heap in linear time.cpp		heap in linear time.cpp
heap.cpp		heap.cpp
heap_sort.cpp		heap_sort.cpp
horner_rule.cpp		horner_rule.cpp
huffman_coding.cpp		huffman_coding.cpp
insertionSort_selectionSort_bubbleSort.cpp		insertionSort_selectionSort_bubbleSort.cpp
intro_sort.cpp		intro_sort.cpp
inversion_fenwick.cpp		inversion_fenwick.cpp
inversion_mergesort.cpp		inversion_mergesort.cpp
is_biconnected.cpp		is_biconnected.cpp
is_tree.cpp		is_tree.cpp
johnson_trotter.cpp		johnson_trotter.cpp
kadane.cpp		kadane.cpp
kd-tree.cpp		kd-tree.cpp
kmp.cpp		kmp.cpp
knapsack.cpp		knapsack.cpp
kosaraju.cpp		kosaraju.cpp
kth largest and smallest number.cpp		kth largest and smallest number.cpp
kth_ancestor_given_parent(Binary Lifting).cpp		kth_ancestor_given_parent(Binary Lifting).cpp
least_common_ancester.cpp		least_common_ancester.cpp
least_common_ancester_in_complete_bin_tree.cpp		least_common_ancester_in_complete_bin_tree.cpp
levenshtein_distance.cpp		levenshtein_distance.cpp
longest_common_subsequence.cpp		longest_common_subsequence.cpp
longest_common_substring.cpp		longest_common_substring.cpp
longest_increasing _subsequence_print.cpp		longest_increasing _subsequence_print.cpp
longest_increasing _subsequence_size.cpp		longest_increasing _subsequence_size.cpp
lower_bound and upper_bound.cpp		lower_bound and upper_bound.cpp
matrix.cpp		matrix.cpp
matrix_chain_multiplication.cpp		matrix_chain_multiplication.cpp
matrix_exponentiation.cpp		matrix_exponentiation.cpp
matrix_layer_rotation.cpp		matrix_layer_rotation.cpp
matrix_multiplication.cpp		matrix_multiplication.cpp
max_and_min_from_each_subarray.cpp		max_and_min_from_each_subarray.cpp
merge_k_sorted_array.cpp		merge_k_sorted_array.cpp
merge_sort.cpp		merge_sort.cpp
meta_binary_search.cpp		meta_binary_search.cpp
min_coin_change.cpp		min_coin_change.cpp
minimumSwaps.cpp		minimumSwaps.cpp
minimum_spanning_tree_kruskal.cpp		minimum_spanning_tree_kruskal.cpp
mnp.cxx		mnp.cxx
mod_inverse.cpp		mod_inverse.cpp
modular_exponentiation.cpp		modular_exponentiation.cpp
move_and_perfect_forwarding.cpp		move_and_perfect_forwarding.cpp
multibfs.cpp		multibfs.cpp
n_queen.cpp		n_queen.cpp

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Installing Boost Library on Unix variants

Downloading boost source files

Extracting boost

Long story short just run these command

Bootstraping boost

Installing boost

Compiling and linking

Compiling program that use header only boost files

Linking static library

Linking dynamic library

Test your program

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patelpreet422/Data-Structures-and-Algorithms

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Installing Boost Library on Unix variants

Downloading boost source files

Extracting boost

Long story short just run these command

Bootstraping boost

Installing boost

Compiling and linking

Compiling program that use header only boost files

Linking static library

Linking dynamic library

Test your program

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