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See Compiler Status to find out what library works with which compiler.
See Header Dependencies to find out what other headers each boost header includes.
You may download all of boost as a single boost_all.zip file. As many boost headers include other boost headers, installing one at at time is painful. This is a first try at making installation easier.
If you don't already have a .zip file decoder, download one from the Info-ZIP web site. The .zip format is used for distribution because there are free decoders and encoders available for many, many different platforms. Many commercial compress/archive utilities also support this format.
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. Also note that a Linux user reports his decoder required renaming boost_all.zip to boost_all.ZIP.
For those who have CVS installed, the libraries can also be downloaded from the public CVS repository. The general procedure goes 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
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 header sub-directory to your compiler's list of #include search directories.
For example, using Windows 2000, if you have unzipped release 1.18.1 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" mechanism in place. Some of the individual libraries do include make and/or project files for various compilers.
Revised 05 Feb 2001