Boost + conan.io + CMake example

Why the dependency manager???

Because:

• It's hard to maintain, especially when the project goes large.
• I'm personally, prefer don't repeat myself (see DRY) and re-use binary whenever possible.

I try to use conan.io for this.

• It quite easy to switch between Boost versions on any platform.
• And even do this automatically on CI/CD servers.

Usage example

1. Intrusive way.

We inject generated by Conan settings into CMakeLists.txt by editing it (ref. to include ).

$ cd boost.log.intrusive; mkdir build; cd build
$ conan install .. --build missing
$ cmake ..
$ cmake --build .

We all set.

2. Non-intrusive or less intrusive way.

We already have our CMakeLists.txt file with a lot of find_packages(...) in it.

How to tell CMake to use Conan's binary packages?

Inject search paths using CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE.

$ cd boost.log.nonintrusive; mkdir build; cd build
$ conan install .. --build missing
$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=conan_paths.cmake
$ cmake --build .

We all set.

NOTE:

I'm not sure if it correct, because I, sometimes, check for CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE variable to detect if I'm in cross-compilation mode.

To avoid TOOLCHAIN_FILE usage, a perhaps better way to provide conan_paths.cmake's variables through the command line.

for example

• $ cmake .. -D<BOOST_ROOT>=<path to dependency> [-D...] etc.
• include conan_paths.cmake on top of your CMakeLists.txt (intrusive, but less changes in find_packages).