Benjamin Rutt writes:

I am new to boost and have a question on building it from source. I built it once using the command:

bjam --with-python-root=/home/rutt/python-2.4 -sPYTHON_VERSION=2.4 --prefix=/home/rutt/boost install

So you can see that I at least resolved the optional dependency on Python. I also noticed that it warned me that it could not find the bzip2 or gzip packages (I can't remember which). At the end of the build, it mentioned something about a number of errors it had in building, yet it did install the boost libraries.

Not possible. If there were actual errors, the build would've stopped.

So it seems that the build process continues on past failures (something like 'make -k').

No, bjam has no such flag.

I guess those "failures" must have been unmet optional dependencies?

Possibly. The way to tell for sure is build in some editor or command shell window with a long memory or simply redirect the build output into a file so you can review it later. If you don't want to wait for the build to actually occur you could run bjam with the -n flag; that will do all the computation necessary including warning you of missing dependencies, but will only print the commands that would be used for building, rather than executing them.

My intention is to build a fully capable boost library and have zero errors and zero unmet dependencies. Is there some documentation or method to obtain information about all optional dependencies boost can pick up at build time?

For now, I think the only documentation is what the build system tells you about.

I would like to install them all, to ensure a clean, zero-error build and know that I have a fully functional boost.

Understood. HTH, -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com