How can I get CMake to find my alternative Boost i

Question

I have installed the most recent version of Boost in /usr/local (with includes in /usr/local/include/boost and libraries in /usr/local/lib/boost) and I am now attempting to install Wt from source, but CMake (version 2.6) can't seem to find the Boost installation. It tries to give helpful suggestions about setting BOOST_DIR and Boost_LIBRARYDIR, but I haven't been able to get it to work by tweaking these variables.

The most recent error message that I get is that it can't find the libraries, but it seems to indicate that it is using "/usr/local/include" for the include path, which isn't correct (and I can't seem to fix it). Is there a solution for this off the top of their head, or do I need to go mucking around inside CMake to figure it out?

Answer 1

I also encountered the same problem, but trying the hints here didn't help, unfortunately.

The only thing that helped was to download the newest version from the Boost page, compile and install it as described in Installing Boost 1.50 on Ubuntu 12.10.

In my case I worked with Boost 1.53.

Answer 2

Generally the most common mistake is not cleaning your build directory after adding new options. I have Boost installed from system packet manager. Its version is 1.49.

I also downloaded Boost 1.53 and "installed" it under $HOME/installs.

The only thing that I had to do in my project was to (I keep sources in my_project_directory/src):

cd my_project_directory
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=$HOME/installs/include -DCMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/installs/lib ../src

And that's it. Ta bum tss.

But if I'd make after cd build -> cmake ../src it would set Boost from the system path. Then doing cmake -DCMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=$HOME/installs/include -DCMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/installs/lib ../src would change nothing.

You have to clean your build directory ( cd build && rm -rf * ;) )

Answer 3

There is a generic method to give CMake directions about where to find libraries.

When looking for a library, CMake looks first in the following variables:

• CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH for libraries
• CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH and INCLUDE_PATH for includes

If you declare your Boost files in one of the environment variables, CMake will find it. Example:

export CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH="/stuff/lib.boost.1.52/lib:$CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH"
export CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH="/stuff/lib.boost.1.52/include:$CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH"

If it's too cumbersome, you can also use a nice installing tool I wrote that will do everything for you: C++ version manager

Answer 4

The short version

You only need BOOST_ROOT, but you're going to want to disable searching the system for your local Boost if you have multiple installations or cross-compiling for iOS or Android. In which case add Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS is set to false.

set( BOOST_ROOT "" CACHE PATH "Boost library path" )
set( Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS on CACHE BOOL "Do not search system for Boost" )

Normally this is passed on the CMake command-line using the syntax -D<VAR>=value.

The longer version

Officially speaking the FindBoost page states these variables should be used to 'hint' the location of Boost.

This module reads hints about search locations from variables:

BOOST_ROOT             - Preferred installation prefix
 (or BOOSTROOT)
BOOST_INCLUDEDIR       - Preferred include directory e.g. <prefix>/include
BOOST_LIBRARYDIR       - Preferred library directory e.g. <prefix>/lib
Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS  - Set to ON to disable searching in locations not
                         specified by these hint variables. Default is OFF.
Boost_ADDITIONAL_VERSIONS
                       - List of Boost versions not known to this module
                         (Boost install locations may contain the version)

This makes a theoretically correct incantation:

cmake -DBoost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS=TRUE \
      -DBOOST_ROOT=/path/to/boost-dir

When you compile from source

include( ExternalProject )

set( boost_URL "http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.63.0/boost_1_63_0.tar.bz2" )
set( boost_SHA1 "9f1dd4fa364a3e3156a77dc17aa562ef06404ff6" )
set( boost_INSTALL ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/third_party/boost )
set( boost_INCLUDE_DIR ${boost_INSTALL}/include )
set( boost_LIB_DIR ${boost_INSTALL}/lib )

ExternalProject_Add( boost
        PREFIX boost
        URL ${boost_URL}
        URL_HASH SHA1=${boost_SHA1}
        BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
        CONFIGURE_COMMAND
        ./bootstrap.sh
        --with-libraries=filesystem
        --with-libraries=system
        --with-libraries=date_time
        --prefix=<INSTALL_DIR>
        BUILD_COMMAND
        ./b2 install link=static variant=release threading=multi runtime-link=static
        INSTALL_COMMAND ""
        INSTALL_DIR ${boost_INSTALL} )

set( Boost_LIBRARIES
        ${boost_LIB_DIR}/libboost_filesystem.a
        ${boost_LIB_DIR}/libboost_system.a
        ${boost_LIB_DIR}/libboost_date_time.a )
message( STATUS "Boost static libs: " ${Boost_LIBRARIES} )

Then when you call this script you'll need to include the boost.cmake script (mine is in the a subdirectory), include the headers, indicate the dependency, and link the libraries.

include( boost )
include_directories( ${boost_INCLUDE_DIR} )
add_dependencies( MyProject boost )
target_link_libraries( MyProject
                       ${Boost_LIBRARIES} )

Answer 5

While configure could find my Boost installation, CMake could not.

Locate FindBoost.cmake and look for LIBRARY_HINTS to see what sub-packages it is looking for. In my case it wanted the MPI and graph libraries.

 # Compute component-specific hints.
  set(_Boost_FIND_LIBRARY_HINTS_FOR_COMPONENT "")
  if(${COMPONENT} STREQUAL "mpi" OR ${COMPONENT} STREQUAL "mpi_python" OR
     ${COMPONENT} STREQUAL "graph_parallel")
    foreach(lib ${MPI_CXX_LIBRARIES} ${MPI_C_LIBRARIES})
      if(IS_ABSOLUTE "${lib}")
        get_filename_component(libdir "${lib}" PATH)
        string(REPLACE "\\" "/" libdir "${libdir}")
        list(APPEND _Boost_FIND_LIBRARY_HINTS_FOR_COMPONENT ${libdir})
      endif()
    endforeach()
  endif()

apt-cache search ... I installed the dev packages since I was building code, and the dev package drags in all the dependencies. I'm not so sure that a standard Boost install needs Open MPI, but this is OK for now.

sudo apt-get install libboost-mpi-dev libboost-mpi-python-dev
sudo apt-get install libboost-graph-parallel-dev

Answer 6

I had a similar issue, and I could use customized Boost libraries by adding the below lines to my CMakeLists.txt file:

set(Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS TRUE)
if (Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS)
  set(BOOST_ROOT "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../../3p/boost")
  set(BOOST_INCLUDE_DIRS "${BOOST_ROOT}/include")
  set(BOOST_LIBRARY_DIRS "${BOOST_ROOT}/lib")
endif (Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS)
find_package(Boost REQUIRED regex date_time system filesystem thread graph program_options)
include_directories(${BOOST_INCLUDE_DIRS})