cannot build PCL with boost dynamic linking

[rdiankov]

it looks like pcl is hardcoding that boost is always statically linked on windows inside the pcl_find_boost.cmake file.

The line here is what does the forcing:

if(NOT PCL_SHARED_LIBS OR WIN32)
  set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
  set(Boost_USE_STATIC ON)
endif(NOT PCL_SHARED_LIBS OR WIN32)

We need an option in cmake to allow for boost. specifically, the following options need to be set:

-DBoost_USE_MULTITHREAD=ON -DBoost_USE_STATIC_LIBS=OFF -DBoost_USE_STATIC=OFF

Also we need to pass two defines to tell boost to do DLL linking to C++

BOOST_ALL_DYN_LINK
BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB

So on the cmake command line i'm thinking of doing this:

CXXFLAGS="-DBOOST_ALL_DYN_LINK -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB"

can we allow PCL cmake file to configure itself for dynamic linking also?

[rdiankov]

Just to add, there was one more place that was forcing static build inside PCLConfig.cmake

if(WIN32)
  set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
  set(Boost_USE_STATIC ON)
endif(WIN32)

it would be great if this reflected the build configuration

set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS @Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS@)
set(Boost_USE_STATIC @Boost_USE_STATIC@)
set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREAD @Boost_USE_MULTITHREAD@)

[jspricke]

Hi @rdiankov, looks like you are already half way through our CMake code. Could you implement it and send a pull request? Thanks a lot!

[rdiankov]

we discovered another problem.
if PCL is built only with debug, then only the _debug.lib files appear, and PCLConfig.cmake doesn't recognize them because it looks for the _release.lib files. In order to fix this we added:

    if(NOT PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY)
      # might be debug only
      set(PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY ${PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY_DEBUG})
    endif(NOT PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY)

around line 544. The full diff file looks like:

--- orig_PCLConfig.cmake    2013-10-04 16:36:46.000152000 +0900
+++ PCLConfig.cmake 2013-10-04 18:13:17.651752000 +0900
@@ -92,10 +92,10 @@
     set(BOOST_INCLUDEDIR "C:/mujin/knowledge3dp/msvc_binaries/amd64/vc100/include")
   endif(PCL_ALL_IN_ONE_INSTALLER)
   # use static Boost in Windows
-  if(WIN32)
-    set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
-    set(Boost_USE_STATIC ON)
-  endif(WIN32)
+  set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS @Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS@)
+ set(Boost_USE_STATIC @Boost_USE_STATIC@)
+ set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREAD @Boost_USE_MULTITHREAD@)
   if(${CMAKE_VERSION} VERSION_LESS 2.8.5)
     SET(Boost_ADDITIONAL_VERSIONS "1.43" "1.43.0" "1.44" "1.44.0" "1.45" "1.45.0" "1.46.1" "1.46.0" "1.46" "1.47" "1.47.0")
   else(${CMAKE_VERSION} VERSION_LESS 2.8.5)
@@ -540,7 +540,12 @@
         ${PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY_DEBUG}
         PATH)
     endif(PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY_DEBUG)
-
+   
+   if(NOT PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY)
+     # might be debug only
+     set(PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY ${PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY_DEBUG})
+   endif(NOT PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY)
+   
     find_package_handle_standard_args(PCL_${COMPONENT} DEFAULT_MSG
       PCL_${COMPONENT}_LIBRARY PCL_${COMPONENT}_INCLUDE_DIR)
   else(_is_header_only EQUAL -1)

it'll be great if you can test these changes on push them to pcl if you think they are ready.

[jspricke]

I don't use Windows, so I can't test it. Could you open a pull request with the patch? Thanks!

[rdiankov]

if you can give me access to this repo, i'd be gllad to put these changes in a branch called dynboostlinking. we're working with pcl 1.6, so we probably need two branches: one for 1.6 and one for the latest master.

[jspricke]

• Rosen Diankov notifications@github.com [2013-10-04 06:09]:

  if you can give me access to this repo, i'd be gllad to put these changes in a branch called dynboostlinking. we're working with pcl 1.6, so we probably need two branches: one for 1.6 and one for the latest master.

PCL 1.6 is really old and we will not publish new releases anymore. For
the patch, just fork master into your account and send a pull request.

Cheers Jochen

[nizar-sallem]

This is not good for UNIX users you will have to keep the if(WIN32) condition and make your modifications there.
As far as I remember we had a lot of issues when building with dynamic libraries on windows so could you be more specific about the compiler version and boost version as well so that we don't handicap other users.
Also I don't know why the last modification is there for ???
So as it is we will have to reject this patch for now,

[rbrusu]

I'll have Stefan test this, as he's a Windows guru. If it looks fine, I say we merge it asap. Sounds like a bug on our end that we should have caught a long time ago. Thanks Rosen!

[rbrusu]

Thanks for testing Rosen!