How to install and use Boost C++ Libraries in CMake project on Ubuntu

Download Boost archive from Version 1.72.0 (that is the current version at the time of writing).

Go to the directory where you want to install Boost:

$ cd ~/dev

Unpack the downloaded archive (tar will create boost_1_72_0 directory):

$ tar --bzip2 -xf ~/Downloads/boost_1_72_0.tar.bz2 
$ ls
boost_1_72_0  github  gnome  go  ssh-keys  vm  vm-shared

Let's see the content of ~/dev/boost_1_72_0/:

~/dev/boost_1_72_0$ ls -A1
boost
boost-build.jam
boostcpp.jam
boost.css
boost.png
bootstrap.bat
bootstrap.sh
doc
index.htm
index.html
INSTALL
Jamroot
libs
LICENSE_1_0.txt
more
README.md
rst.css
status
tools

Let's see the content of ~/dev/boost_1_72_0/boost/:

~/dev/boost_1_72_0/boost$ ls -A1
accumulators
algorithm
align
aligned_storage.hpp
align.hpp
any.hpp
archive
array.hpp
asio
asio.hpp
assert.hpp
assign
assign.hpp
atomic
atomic.hpp
beast
beast.hpp

...

lambda
...

Many Boost libraries are header-only which means we don't need to build them, it is only necessary to add relevant header in the source code and path to it to compiler (-I) options.

Boost documentation page Getting Started on Unix Variants contains a short demo code and I'm gonna use it here. It uses boost/lambda/lambda.hpp header from so let's see the content of ~/dev/boost_1_72_0/boost/lambda/ to confirm it's there:

~/dev/boost_1_72_0/boost/lambda$ ls -A1

algorithm.hpp

bind.hpp

casts.hpp

closures.hpp

construct.hpp

control_structures.hpp

core.hpp

detail

exceptions.hpp

if.hpp

lambda.hpp

loops.hpp

numeric.hpp

switch.hpp

Let's create a project in VSCode with following structure:

.vscode/tasks.json

build/

src/main.cpp

.gitignore

CMakeLists.txt

.vscode/tasks.json:

{

    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558

    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format

    "version": "2.0.0",

    "tasks": [

        {

            "type": "shell",

            "label": "CMake && make",

            "options": {

                "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/build"

            },

            "command": "cmake make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug .. && make -j 4",

            "group": {

                "kind": "build",

                "isDefault": true

            }

        }

    ]

}

src/main.cpp:

#include <boost/lambda/lambda.hpp>

#include <iostream>

#include <iterator>

#include <algorithm>

int main() {

    std::cout << "main()" << std::endl;

    using namespace boost::lambda;

    typedef std::istream_iterator<int> in;

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

    return 0;

}

CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)

project(boost-demo)

set(SOURCE src/main.cpp)

set(BOOST_ROOT "$HOME/dev/boost_1_72_0")

include_directories(include)

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SOURCE})

Press CTRL+SHIFT+B in order to trigger building the project:

> Executing task: cmake make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug .. && make -j 4 <

-- Configuring done

-- Generating done

-- Build files have been written to: /home/bojan/dev/github/boost-demo/build

Scanning dependencies of target boost-demo

[ 50%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/boost-demo.dir/src/main.cpp.o

[100%] Linking CXX executable boost-demo

[100%] Built target boost-demo

Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

The output is an executable which we can run now:

~/dev/github/boost-demo$ ./build/boost-demo 

main()

1

3 2

6 3

9 4

12 7

21 ^C

The example above shows how it's simple to include Boost headers in C++ CMake project.

For some Boost features, we need to compile and install certain Boost libraries.

How to compile and install Boost binaries?

~/dev/boost_1_72_0$ ./bootstrap.sh --help

`./bootstrap.sh' prepares Boost for building on a few kinds of systems.

Usage: ./bootstrap.sh [OPTION]... 

Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.

Configuration:

  -h, --help                display this help and exit

  --with-bjam=BJAM          use existing Boost.Jam executable (bjam)

                            [automatically built]

  --with-toolset=TOOLSET    use specific Boost.Build toolset

                            [automatically detected]

  --show-libraries          show the set of libraries that require build

                            and installation steps (i.e., those libraries

                            that can be used with --with-libraries or

                            --without-libraries), then exit

  --with-libraries=list     build only a particular set of libraries,

                            describing using either a comma-separated list of

                            library names or "all"

                            [all]

  --without-libraries=list  build all libraries except the ones listed []

  --with-icu                enable Unicode/ICU support in Regex 

                            [automatically detected]

  --without-icu             disable Unicode/ICU support in Regex

  --with-icu=DIR            specify the root of the ICU library installation

                            and enable Unicode/ICU support in Regex

                            [automatically detected]

  --with-python=PYTHON      specify the Python executable [python]

  --with-python-root=DIR    specify the root of the Python installation

                            [automatically detected]

  --with-python-version=X.Y specify the Python version as X.Y

                            [automatically detected]

Installation directories:

  --prefix=PREFIX           install Boost into the given PREFIX

                            [/usr/local]

  --exec-prefix=EPREFIX     install Boost binaries into the given EPREFIX

                            [PREFIX]

More precise control over installation directories:

  --libdir=DIR              install libraries here [EPREFIX/lib]

  --includedir=DIR          install headers here [PREFIX/include]

To Be Continued...

References:

Boost Getting Started on Unix Variants - 1.72.0