Boost Download and Installation

The boost libraries are intended for easy download and installation. However, unlike other packages, there is no global setup and configuration tool.

Download

The boost libraries are available in various formats. Most of the files are available through links from the individual library's documentation. As many boost headers include other boost headers, installing one at a time is painful. Therefore, archive formats have been prepared which contain all of boost in a single file.

ZIP file

The .zip format is widely supported by both free decoders and commercial commpress/archive utilities. If you don't already have a .zip file decoder, download one from the Info-ZIP web site.

Unix/Linux hints: boost_all.zip is built on a Win32 platform, so the line endings are wrong for Unix/Linux. Use the -a option when unzipping with InfoZip for Unix/Linux friendly line endings.

Latest version

.tar.gz file

The .tar.gz format is widely supported on Unix/Linux platforms. Some Windows compress/archive utilities can read the format as well.

Latest version

CVS archive

For those who have CVS installed, the libraries are also available from the public CVS repository. The general procedure for command-line clients is something like this:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.boost.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/boost login
[Hit <return> when it asks for a password]
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.boost.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/boost checkout boost cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.boost.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/boost logout

Read the manual for your CVS client for further information.

This access is read-only, if you are a library author and wish to have CVS write access, please contact one of the moderators.

WWW access to the CVS archive

For access to individual files in the CVS archive, you can also use its WWW interface.

Installation

Many boost libraries are implemented entirely within their header files. The only preparation for their use is to add the path for the parent directory of the boost headers sub-directory to your compiler's list of #include search directories.

For example, using Windows 2000, if you have unzipped release 1.20.2 from boost_all.zip into the top level directory of your C drive, for Borland, GCC, and Metrowerks compilers add '-Ic:/boost_1_18_1' to the compiler command line, and for the Microsoft compiler add '/I "c:/boost_1_18_1"'. For IDE's, add 'c:/boost_1_18_1' (or whatever you have renamed it to) to the search list using the appropriate GUI dialog.

A few boost libraries are implemented by separate source files, and thus require compilation on your system to link properly. Boost does not currently have an overall "build" or "make" machanism in place. Some of the individual libraries do include make and/or project files for various compilers, though.

2001-02-11 Jens Maurer