error about compiling c++ code with cmake and boost

Question

I am trying to compile c++ software depending on boost with CMake. With the same source code and CMakeLists.txt files, I succeeded with my own laptop (ubuntu 11 with boost1.42), but I am getting the following error message with my workstation (RHEL6.2 with boost 1.41) in research group (btw, boost1.41 should be enough):

main/main.cpp: In function ‘path
make_path(const std::string&)’:
main/main.cpp:50: error: invalid
conversion from ‘bool (*)(const std::string&)’ to ‘void*’
main/main.cpp:50: error:
initializing argument 2 of ‘boost::filesystem3::path::path(const Source&,
typename
boost::enable_if<boost::filesystem3::path_traits::is_pathable<typename
boost::decay<Source>::type>, void>::type*) [with Source =
std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >]’
main/main.cpp: In function ‘int
main(int, char**)’:
main/main.cpp:664: error: ‘class
path’ has no member named ‘native_file_string’
main/main.cpp:676: error: ‘class
path’ has no member named ‘native_file_string’
make[2]: *** [main/CMakeFiles/vina_main.dir/main.cpp.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [main/CMakeFiles/vina_main.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

I don't quite understand the error message and don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help me?

======================= update =========================

The above error message is fixed thanks to your help, but I still get the error message indicating linking failure between my executable file and boost libraries. I did link it within CMakeLists.txt by 'target_link_libraries (vvv_main vvv ${Boost_LIBRARIES})'. The error message is like:

CMakeFiles/vvv_main.dir/main.cpp.o: In function              '__static_initialization_and_destruction_0':
/usr/local/include/boost/system/error_code.hpp:214: undefined reference to `boost::system::generic_category()'
/usr/local/include/boost/system/error_code.hpp:215: undefined reference to `boost::system::generic_category()'
/usr/local/include/boost/system/error_code.hpp:216: undefined reference to `boost::system::system_category()'

.......

I read other related posts here, but still have no clue how to fix my problem. Thanks!

Can you show us line 50 of main.cpp? And perhaps some context around that line? — wilhelmtell
Also, in line 664 you seem to be calling a none-existent method. I know that boost::filesystem v3 breaks many things of v2, so check the functions that were removed. — wilhelmtell
In line 50 of main.cpp you're instantiating a boost::fileystem3::path object. What is the second parameter you're passing to the constructor? — wilhelmtell
Are you sure this is version 1.41? Because v3 is only meant to be the default from Boost 1.46 onwards. The other thing is that path::native_file_string is deprecated and (I think) has been for a while. Whether Boost actually provides deprecated bits or not is controlled by a #define; maybe it's defined differently on your two systems. — Gareth McCaughan
@wilhelmtell Thank you. The line 50 is :' return path(str, boost::filesystem::native); '. The problem is due to default Boost filesystem version. But now I have some problem for linking executable file with boost library. — Tao

janitor048 janitor048 · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-10T10:29:38

I would suggest, that you use the find_package routines of CMake together with the required flag and explicitly specifying the components you need. Then there is no need to manually set the libraries.

For your project

FIND_PACKAGE(Boost 1.41 COMPONENTS filesystem system REQUIRED)
MESSAGE(STATUS "** Boost Include: ${Boost_INCLUDE_DIR}")
MESSAGE(STATUS "** Boost Libraries: ${Boost_LIBRARIES}")

together with

TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(your_project ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

should do the trick. Specifying the version (here 1.41) makes CMake if only an older version of boost is available. Specifying the components (components = boost libraries that are not header-only) makes CMake complain if those are not available and also automatically adds those to the variable Boost_LIBRARIES. The Message statements are not necessary but I like to have some feedback...

In case you would like to manually download and install the newest version of boost (which I normally do since Linux distributions tend to be somewhat slow with respect to boost packaging) alongside the version provided by the system, then you can hint the find_package scripts for boost to the custom location via

SET(BOOST_ROOT "$ENV{HOME}/usr")

which of course goes before the find_package call (in this example boost would have been installed into the prefix $HOME/usr).

One last remark - I sometimes used to have problems with older versions of the FindBoost.cmake script (especially those from the old CMake 2.6) that does all the magic when find_package(Boost) is called. It should not be a problem for Boost 1.41, but in case there are problems finding (newer versions of) Boost even though you're absolutely sure it is correctly installed, you might want to try a more recent version of FindBoost.cmake. For example from the gitweb, it should be in the Modules tree.

error about compiling c++ code with cmake and boost

1 Answers