C++ turns 30

30 years ago in October 14th, 1985, the very first edition of The C++ Programming Language was published together with the release of CFront 1.0 (the first C++ compiler)

Bjarne Stroustrup on the 30th anniversary of Cfront (the first C++ compiler)

Oct. 14, 1985: C++ Adds to Programming

Boost and ICU build scripts for MinGW-w64

My MinGW distro is long gone now. However I still privately use a MinGW-w64 toolchain to test and study C++.

I have kept two scripts to build both ICU and Boost so I can have Boost libraries always available.

The scripts are for the latest version of both libraries. Build first ICU, uncompress the generated package and then build Boost.

You will need:

• Bash (eg from Git for Windows or MSYS);
• MinGW (from other distribuitions). I personally use the latest MinGW-w64 toolchain;
• Microsoft Macro Assembler to build Boost.Context (you can get it from, eg, a Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 or 2015 Community Edition installation. See #7262 for details. See also Building Boost with MinGW64 without MASM);
• The following tools: bsdtar, diff, patch, gnufind, bzip2, unzip and xz (put them in a directory in the PATH);
• And the scripts: icu-55.1-w64-amd64.sh and boost-1.59.0-w64-amd64.sh

Steps:

• Create a directory, eg, C:\mingw-build;
• Under this directory create other three directories: dest, scripts and sources;
• Copy both icu-55.1-w64-amd64.sh and boost-1.59.0-w64-amd64.sh to the scripts directory;
• Download icu4c-55_1-src.tgz and icu4c-55_1-data.zip from ICU site to the sources directory;
• Download boost_1_59_0.tar.bz2 from Boost site to the sources directory;
• Download the MinGW-w64 toolschain and uncompress it to C:\MinGW64
• Configure your system and add C:\MinGW64\bin to the PATH
• Download the tools (bsdtar, diff, patch, gnufind, bzip2 and xz) to C:\MinGW64\bin (or any other directory in the PATH);
• Open Bash;
• Go to the scripts directory: cd /c/mingw-build/scripts
• Execute the ICU build script: ./icu-55.1-w64-amd64.sh
• If the build is successful the icuc-55.1-w64-amd64.tar.xz file is created in the C:\mingw-build\dest directory;
• Go to the MinGW64\bin directory: cd /c/MinGW64
• Uncompress the ICU package: bsdtar xzf /c/mingw-build/dest/icuc-55.1-w64-amd64.tar.xz
• Go back to the scripts directory: cd /c/mingw-build/scripts
• Execute the Boost build script: ./boost-1.59.0-w64-amd64.sh
• If the build is successful the boost-1.59.0-w64-amd64.tar.xz file is created in the C:\mingw-build\dest directory;
• Go to the MinGW64\bin directory: cd /c/MinGW64
• Uncompress the Boost package: bsdtar xzf /c/mingw-build/dest/boost-1.59.0-w64-amd64.tar.xz
• Now you have a MinGW-w64 installation with the Boost libraries

Please send your feedback: comments, suggestions and bug reports!!

DISCLAIMER: the scripts are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.