libboost1.3?-dev should include dev tools

[Bernhard Reiter]

Part of Boost are a couple of tools (eg boostbook and quickbook, for producing documentation).
Neither of them can currently be found in any of Ubuntu's Boost-related packages. Following current practice, they should probably go to libboost1.3?-dev.

The attached patches roughly follow information on how to compile both from source on Ubuntu and Debian as found on Boost's website:
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/tools/quickbook/doc/html/quickbook/install/linux.html

and some advice concerning how to configure the boost build system to acknowledge the present of those tools:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.build/20084

Skip to comment 11 if you're not interested in the history and evolution of this bug.
(Description rewritten on 2009-06-03)

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

The attached (quite straightforward) patch (against the debian subdir of the source package) adds the boostbook, quickbook, inspect and regression tools to libboost1.35-dev, as this is also the package the bcp tool is already part of. Note that boostbook has a couple of runtime dependencies (->Recommends) and Suggestions added to the control file.

Also note that in order to work with a Boost Build system, you'd need to configure your user-config.jam. This is not done by the package, and has not been done for any other tool up to now, but it might be worth considering for future updates.

Finally, note that no further documentation has to be installed, as it's already present in libboost1.35-doc.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Turns out boostbook isn't usable with the present setup, for several reasons:
1) Boost.Build looks for a boostbook/xsl subdir, not a boostbook/styleshhet one.
2) By default, Boost.Build looks for boost-build../../tools/boostbook. This is hardly feasible with boost-build at
/usr/share/boost-build (and wouldn't even really work with Boost.Build at /usr/share/boost/boost-build or whatever). By using

import boostbook-config ;

in site-config.jam (or user-config.jam), a file that is part of Boost-Build, it is possible to put boostbook into /usr/share/boostbook/, as this location will then be queried for it (see line 60 of /usr/share/boost-build/tools/boostbook-config.jam). Similar files also exist for quickbook, xsltproc, and doxygen (the latter deprecated); thus, adding

import xsltproc-config ;
using doxygen ;
import quickbook-config ;

to site-config.jam (or user-config.jam, again) auto-configures quickbook, too.

If Boostbook really needs to go to another location (such as /usr/share/xml/boostbook), line 60 of boostbook-config.jam would have to be modified in order to fit into this approach.

Note that Boostbook requires Boost.Build!

---

The revised version of the patch therefore adds recommendation for boost-build >= 2 and changes the Boostbook location to /usr/share/boostbook. It does not yet, however, touch any site-config.jam or user-config.jam file.

This is partly because of their redundancy: the present boost-build package (2.0-m12-1) installs (identical) user-config.jam files both to /etc and to /usr/share/boost-build (and am empty site-config.jam). In Debian's 2.0-m12-2, this is fixed by not installing /usr/share/boost-build/user-config.jam anymore (and instead providing a non-empty /etc/site-config.jam).
I've filed a bug report requesting syncing that version from debian:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/boost-build/+bug/271699

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Okay, boost-build 2.0-m12-2 has been synced. What's now left to do is find a location for the configuration lines as of the previous comment. This should probably be in a separate *.jam file installed by libboost1.3?-dev that is somehow found by boost-build when called. I've asked on the boost-build mailing list, and the one suggestion I got can be found at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.build/20084

Applying this advice would mean
* make libboost1.3?-dev add e.g. an /etc/boost/ or /etc/boost-build/ directory, and put a e.g. boost-tools.jam file there that includes the relevant configuration lines
* modifying the boost-build's site-config.jam to include that location

I'll see if I can roll out a patch to reflect this. Note that I'm not sure about security implications - to me using /etc and subdirs for configuration seems pretty fine, though.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Okay, it took a while, but here go my debdiffs for boost-build and boost1.37 (as of Jaunty)

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

See my PPA for packages: https://launchpad.net/~ockham-razor/+archive/ppa

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

D'oh. In the first attempt, I was using the old tools.patch. Should be good now.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

*** This is an automated message ***

This bug is tagged needs-packaging which identifies it as a request for a new package in Ubuntu. As a part of the managing needs-packaging bug reports specification, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Specs/NeedsPackagingBugs, all needs-packaging bug reports have Wishlist importance. Subsequently, I'm setting this bug's status to Wishlist.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Okay, now this is obviously not a needs-packaging request anymore. What am I supposed to do? File two new bug reports? Or is this one sufficient?

[Iain Lane (laney)]

(Please don't use "Fix Committed")

Thanks for your work here. This will need a freeze exception or deferring for Karmic as we are way past feature freeze now. The process is at [0] for you to follow if you'd like.

Unsubscribing the sponsors. Please resubscribe when ready.

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

@motu-release: Freeze exception, please?
This is not really a [needs-packaging] bug anymore. Instead, the two patches enable installation of the boostbook, quickbook and inspect tools (as part of the libboost1.37-dev package), which are part of the upstream package, but currently not installed.

boost-build (2.0-m12-2ubuntu1) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/rules: Create /etc/boost-build/ directory
  * debian/site-config.jam: Make boost-build include additional
    configuration files in /etc/boost-build/

 -- Bernhard Reiter <email address hidden> Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:37:45 +0100

boost1.37 (1.37.0-3ubuntu4) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/control: Recommend and suggest helper packages for use
    with boost tools.
  * debian/rules: Install boostbook, quickbook and inspect tools
    as part of libboost1.37-dev
  * debian/boost-tools.jam: New. Configure boost-build to find
    the tools.

 -- Bernhard Reiter <email address hidden> Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:07:15 +0100

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

These are more invasive changes for new capability than we can accept late in the release cycle. This will have to wait for Karmic.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Obviously, this should not only be applied to boost1.37, but also to any other version.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

Okay, following advice from #ubuntu-motu, I'm forwarding this to Debian's Boost team mailing list, attaching debdiffs against sid's boost1.38 for their reference here.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

boost1.37 is being removed from Karmic.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

I think this can be considered fixed as of 1.38.0-7, see http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/b/boost1.40/current/changelog#versionversion1.38.0-7
As for the boost-build suggestions, see what Steve M. Robbins replied to my inquiry: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-boost-devel/2009-October/002304.html
So even if the latter is more of a "Won't fix", it's probably good to set the altogether state to fixed.

[Bernhard Reiter (ockham-razor)]

So what remains to be done is set the state for boost-build to Won't Fix -- I don't seem to have the privileges to do that.