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<div><h2 class="title">
<a name="bcp"></a>BCP</h2></div>
<div><div class="authorgroup"><div class="author"><h3 class="author">
<span class="firstname">John</span> <span class="surname">Maddock</span>
</h3></div></div></div>
<div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2209 John Maddock</p></div>
<div><div class="legalnotice">
<a name="id774375"></a><p>
Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
</p>
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<div class="toc">
<p><b>Table of Contents</b></p>
<dl>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.overview"> Overview</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.examples"> Examples</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax"> Syntax</a></span></dt>
<dd><dl>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.main"> Behaviour Selection</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.options"> Options</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.module"> module-list</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.output"> output-path</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.dependencies">Dependencies</a></span></dt>
</dl></dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="bcp.overview"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.overview" title="Overview"> Overview</a>
</h2></div></div></div>
<p>
The bcp utility is a tool for extracting subsets of Boost, it's useful for
Boost authors who want to distribute their library separately from Boost, and
for Boost users who want to distribute a subset of Boost with their application.
</p>
<p>
bcp can also report on which parts of Boost your code is dependent on, and
what licences are used by those dependencies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="bcp.examples"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.examples" title="Examples"> Examples</a>
</h2></div></div></div>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp scoped_ptr /foo
</pre>
<p>
Copies boost/scoped_ptr.hpp and dependencies to /foo.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp boost/regex.hpp /foo
</pre>
<p>
Copies boost/regex.hpp and all dependencies including the regex source code
(in libs/regex/src) and build files (in libs/regex/build) to /foo. Does not
copy the regex documentation, test, or example code.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp regex /foo
</pre>
<p>
Copies the full regex lib (in libs/regex) including dependencies (such as the
boost.test source required by the regex test programs) to /foo.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp --namespace=myboost --namespace-alias regex config build /foo
</pre>
<p>
Copies the full regex lib (in libs/regex) plus the config lib (libs/config)
and the build system (tools/build) to /foo including all the dependencies.
Also renames the boost namespace to <span class="emphasis"><em>myboost</em></span> and changes
the filenames of binary libraries to begin with the prefix "myboost"
rather than "boost". The --namespace-alias option makes <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">namespace</span> <span class="identifier">boost</span></code>
an alias of the new name.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp --scan --boost=/boost foo.cpp bar.cpp boost
</pre>
<p>
Scans the [non-boost] files foo.cpp and bar.cpp for boost dependencies and
copies those dependencies to the sub-directory boost.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp --report regex.hpp boost-regex-report.html
</pre>
<p>
Creates a HTML report called boost-regex-report.html for the boost module regex.hpp.
The report contains license information, author details, and file dependencies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="bcp.syntax"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax" title="Syntax"> Syntax</a>
</h2></div></div></div>
<div class="toc"><dl>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.main"> Behaviour Selection</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.options"> Options</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.module"> module-list</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.output"> output-path</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#bcp.syntax.dependencies">Dependencies</a></span></dt>
</dl></div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="bcp.syntax.main"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax.main" title="Behaviour Selection"> Behaviour Selection</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp --list [options] module-list
</pre>
<p>
Outputs a list of all the files in module-list including dependencies.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp [options] module-list output-path
</pre>
<p>
Copies all the files found in module-list to output-path
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">bcp --report [options] module-list html-file
</pre>
<p>
Outputs a html report file containing:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc">
<li>
All the licenses in effect, plus the files using each license, and the
copyright holders using each license.
</li>
<li>
Any files with no recognizable license (please report these to the boost
mailing lists).
</li>
<li>
Any files with no recognizable copyright holders (please report these to
the boost mailing lists).
</li>
<li>
All the copyright holders and the files on which they hold copyright.
</li>
<li>
File dependency information - indicates the reason for the inclusion of
any particular file in the dependencies found.
</li>
</ul></div>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="bcp.syntax.options"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax.options" title="Options"> Options</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<pre class="programlisting">--boost=path
</pre>
<p>
Sets the location of the boost tree to path. If this option is not provided
then the current path is assumed to be the root directory of the Boost tree.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">--namespace=newname </pre>
<p>
When copying files, all occurances of the boost namespace will get renamed
to "newname". Also renames Boost binaries to use "newname"
rather than "boost" as a prefix.
</p>
<p>
Often used in conjunction with the --namespace-alias option, this allows
two different Boost versions to be used in the same program, but not in the
same translation unit.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">--namespace-alias</pre>
<p>
When used in conjunction with the --namespace option, then <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">namespace</span> <span class="identifier">boost</span></code>
will be declared as an alias of the new namespace name. This allows existing
code that relies on Boost code being in <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">namespace</span>
<span class="identifier">boost</span></code> to compile unchanged, while
retaining the "strong versioning" that can be achieved with a namespace
change.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">--scan
</pre>
<p>
Treats the module list as a list of (probably non-boost) files to scan for
boost dependencies, the files listed in the module list are not copied (or
listed), only the boost files upon which they depend.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">--svn
</pre>
<p>
Only copy files under svn version control.
</p>
<pre class="programlisting">--unix-lines
</pre>
<p>
Make sure that all copied files use Unix style line endings.
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="bcp.syntax.module"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax.module" title="module-list"> module-list</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
When the --scan option is not used then a list of boost files or library
names to copy, this can be:
</p>
<div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1">
<li>
The name of a tool: for example "build" will find "tools/build".
</li>
<li>
The name of a library: for example "regex".
</li>
<li>
The title of a header: for example "scoped_ptr" will find "boost/scoped_ptr.hpp".
</li>
<li>
The name of a header: for example "scoped_ptr.hpp" will find
"boost/scoped_ptr.hpp".
</li>
<li>
The name of a file: for example "boost/regex.hpp".
</li>
</ol></div>
<p>
When the --scan option is used, then a list of (probably non-boost) files
to scan for boost dependencies, the files in the module list are not therefore
copied/listed.
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="bcp.syntax.output"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax.output" title="output-path"> output-path</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
The path to which files will be copied (this path must exist).
</p>
</div>
<div class="section" lang="en">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="bcp.syntax.dependencies"></a><a class="link" href="index.html#bcp.syntax.dependencies" title="Dependencies">Dependencies</a>
</h3></div></div></div>
<p>
File dependencies are found as follows:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc">
<li>
C++ source files are scanned for #includes, all #includes present in the
boost source tree will then be scanned for their dependencies and so on.
</li>
<li>
C++ source files are associated with the name of a library, if that library
has source code (and possibly build data), then include that source in
the dependencies.
</li>
<li>
C++ source files are checked for dependencies on Boost.test (for example
to see if they use cpp_main as an entry point).
</li>
<li>
HTML files are scanned for immediate dependencies (images and style sheets,
but not links).
</li>
</ul></div>
<p>
It should be noted that in practice bcp can produce a rather "fat"
list of dependencies, reasons for this include: * It searches for library
names first, so using "regex" as a name will give you everything
in the libs/regex directory and everything that depends on. This can be a
long list as all the regex test and example programs will get scanned for
their dependencies. If you want a more minimal list, then try using the names
of the headers you are actually including, or use the --scan option to scan
your source code. * If you include the header of a library with separate
source, then you get that libraries source and all it's dependencies. This
is deliberate and in general those extra dependencies are needed. * When
you include a header, bcp doesn't know what compiler you're using, so it
follows all possible preprocessor paths. If you're distributing a subset
of Boost with you're application then that is what you want to have happen
in general.
</p>
<p>
The last point above can result in a substantial increase in the number of
headers found compared to most peoples expectations. For example bcp finds
274 header dependencies for boost/shared_ptr.hpp: by running bcp in report
mode we can see why all these headers have been found as dependencies:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc">
<li>
All of the Config library headers get included (52 headers, would be about
6 for one compiler only).
</li>
<li>
A lot of MPL and type traits code that includes workarounds for broken
compilers that you may or may not need. Tracing back through the code shows
that most of these aren't needed unless the user has defined BOOST_SP_USE_QUICK_ALLOCATOR,
however bcp isn't aware of whether that preprocessor path will be taken
or not, so the headers get included just in case. This adds about 48 headers
(type traits), plus another 49 from MPL.
</li>
<li>
The Preprocessor library gets used heavily by MPL: this adds another 96
headers.
</li>
<li>
The Shared Pointer library contains a lot of platform specific code, split
up into around 22 headers: normally your compiler would need only a couple
of these files.
</li>
</ul></div>
<p>
As you can see the number of dependencies found are much larger than those
used by any single compiler, however if you want to distribute a subset of
Boost that's usable in any configuration, by any compiler, on any platform
then that's exactly what you need. If you want to figure out which Boost
headers are being used by your specific compiler then the best way to find
out is to prepocess the code and scan the output for boost header includes.
You should be aware that the result will be very platform and compiler specific,
and may not contain all the headers needed if you so much as change a compiler
switch (for example turn on threading support).
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<table xmlns:rev="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gregod/boost/tools/doc/revision" width="100%"><tr>
<td align="left"><p><small>Last revised: December 28, 2009 at 13:24:19 GMT</small></p></td>
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