Status of shipped Boost?

[vadi2]

What is the future status of the shipped Boost in environments? It is super convenient that is is available in Ubuntu and Windows (unfortunately missing on macOS) but I also see that further updates to it have been rejected.

While there is a script to download latest boost for Windows, there don't seem to be similar ones for other platforms.

I'm wondering what path should I take for making use of Boost in the Github CI?

[AraHaan]

I would be for having an github action that can do all the needed checks to download, setup for build (if a pre-built version of whatever requested cannot be used), build (if a pre-built version of whatever requested cannot be used), and then install boost (according to what the user asks for) similar to the setup-dotnet action.

[vadi2]

There is in a way: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/run-vcpkg however it insists on building Boost, this can take 15-20min unless it's cached. Github likes to evict the cache pretty often from my experience, so you have to pay that price a bit too much for my taste - which is nice when Github itself provisions Boost.

[maxim-lobanov]

Hello @vadi2 ,
Unfortunately, we don't have plans to bake future versions of Boost into the images.
Boost is not very popular on Hosted images and rises maintenance concerns (takes much free space, supporting a few versions because of breaking changes, building from source code and etc)

Previously, we had to build it from source code and distribute through packages on https://github.com/actions/boost-versions since building from source code takes much time during image-generation.

I think the most convenient way to use newer versions of Boost right now is

• Windows: download official pre-build binaries provided by Boost team.
• Ubuntu:
  • Use apt packages: https://www.osetc.com/en/how-to-install-boost-on-ubuntu-16-04-18-04-linux.html
  • Use vcpkg + caching feature (the first build could take much time but consuming existing cache works really fast)
• macOS: Install via brew install boost

[vadi2]

OK, thanks for the reply. It's unfortunate since none of the solutions are as good for the first build + repeating builds as having it be shipped.