Adding Boost to Creator

JonB

@A123
There is something we do not understand going on here. In principle given that you have #include<boost/algorithm/string.hpp> it should be picking that up /usr/include/boost/algorithm/string.hpp.

Please open a terminal somewhere (some other empty directory within your /home area). Create file.cpp containing just:

#include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>

(It should make no difference, but I have put a space before the <). Now just type in

g++ -c file.cpp

What do you get?

Then try:

g++ -c -I/usr/include fred.cpp

Now try changing the <..> to "...", i.e. #include "boost/algorithm/string.hpp" with that second command-line again.

Finally, try #include "/usr/include/boost/algorithm/string.hpp", so the -I... argument is irrelevant.

Obviously we are only interested in what the compiler has to say about the #include line. I have suggested 4 things to try here. Do any of these work? Which work/fail?

A123

@JonB

All work to generate file.o except

g++ -c -I/usr/include fred.cpp which has no such file or directory

JonB

@A123

g++ -c -I/usr/include fred.cpp which has no such file or directory

Well, that somehow looks like the situation you seem to be in from Creator.

What I really don't get is you are saying

g++ -c file.cpp

does work, while

g++ -c -I/usr/include fred.cpp

does not. Please confirm this is indeed exactly the case? It is vital we are 100% clear on this.

Now that is weird, because the -I... only adds directories to search. Since you say it worked OK without this I cannot understand how adding could prevent the file being found.

Next test:

g++ -c -I/rubbish file.cpp    # then does this work or fail??

I also asked you to try changing the #include from <...> to "...". Did you do that? I am only interested if that made it behave differently in any case?

A123

@JonB

I have file.cpp in sampleproject in the home directory. There is no fred.cpp file.

g++ -c -I/usr/include fred.cpp

gives me

cc1plus: fatal error: fred.cpp: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.

g++ -c file.cpp

works to generate file.o

g++ -c -I/rubbish file.cpp

works

changing from <> to "" surrounding the include works.

I tried to start a new project in QT creator with file.cpp and the boost include was still not picked up.
In addition there is no usr/include in the system PATH variable when I

echo $PATH

Not sure if that matters

This is Linux Mint 21 BTW

JonB

@A123
OK, I'm tired. Whenever I wrote file.cpp or fred.cpp they were supposed to be the same thing. I will try to stick to file.cpp.

There are 4 combinations to try

g++ -c -I/usr/include file.cpp  # where file.cpp contains <...>
g++ -c -I/rubbish file.cpp  # where file.cpp contains <...>
g++ -c -I/usr/include file.cpp  # where file.cpp contains "..."
g++ -c -I/rubbish file.cpp  # where file.cpp contains "..."

Can you clearly & unequivocally state which of these work and which fail?

Now that you say plain g++ -c file.cpp works then why did you ever start adding things to INCLUDEPATH, that means it should have worked from the very start with nothing added?

Kent-Dorfman

I'm really beginning to sense a corrupted g++ compiler instance here. The stuff being described just shouldn't happen!

A123

@JonB

There are 4 combinations to try

All 4 generate file.o

Now that you say plain g++ -c file.cpp works then why did you ever start adding things to INCLUDEPATH, that means it should have worked from the very start with nothing added?

I was trying to get things to work from the QT creator IDE which still doesn't work. When I tried things out through terminal like you suggested it is able to find the boost library for the simple example. So I think the problem is some setting within QT creator itself.

For reference I am using QT creator 8.0.1, QT 6.3.1, and the QT6 Kit

JonB

@A123 said in Adding Boost to Creator:

All 4 generate file.o

OK. Not sure that was the impression I got previously, but I get it now. That ought to be a good start!

So I think the problem is some setting within QT creator itself.

Creator does not do compiling itself. It is an IDE which calls on external tools (e.g. g++) to do compilations.

Let's start by being 100.000% clear. Your screenshot shows errors. Do you indeed get these when you COMPILE ? If you only get these when looking at your source code in the IDE, not when you actually compile, now is the time to say so! That would be a totally different situation.... So please make this crystal clear?

Assuming you get them when you allow Creator to invoke the compiler. Then in principle there are really/mostly only two things in Creator which affect this:

Show the actual command-line being issued to compile the file. You can find this in Creator on the Compiler Output pane.
There is a Build Environment setting. That allows environment variables to be passed to the compiler which we do not see on its command-line. Do you have anything of interest there?

You could show these two.

One other random thought: you do not have a sub-directory named boost in, say, your source directory, or perhaps one level above it, do you??

You might also try the following from a terminal:

find / -name boost -type d -print

Does it only report one directory named boost? Just in /usr/include, nowhere else, right?

Last thing: you might try setting up a brand new project in a brand new directory as a Qt project. Add only the file.cpp containing just the #include line. Try to compile. Success or failure?

A123

@JonB

Let's start by being 100.000% clear. Your screenshot shows errors. Do you indeed get these when you COMPILE ? If you only get these when looking at your source code in the IDE, not when you actually compile, now is the time to say so! That would be a totally different situation.... So please make this crystal clear?

The line is labeled with a 'no such file or directory' error as soon as I paste it into the Creator code edit window. It pops up again in compile output when I attempt to build the project.

Assuming you get them when you allow Creator to invoke the compiler. Then in principle there are really/mostly only two things in Creator which affect this:

I put an empty file with the include in a sample project.

15:02:39: Running steps for project sampleproj2...
15:02:39: Starting: "/app/bin/qmake" /home/samp/sampleproj2/sampleproj2.pro -spec linux-g++ CONFIG+=debug CONFIG+=qml_debug
15:02:39: The process "/app/bin/qmake" exited normally.
15:02:39: Starting: "/usr/bin/make" -f /home/samp/build-sampleproj2-Qt6-Debug/Makefile qmake_all
make: Nothing to be done for 'qmake_all'.
15:02:39: The process "/usr/bin/make" exited normally.
15:02:39: Starting: "/usr/bin/make" -j16
g++ -c -pipe -g -std=gnu++1z -Wall -Wextra -fPIC -DQT_QML_DEBUG -I../sampleproj2 -I. -I/app/mkspecs/linux-g++ -o file.o ../sampleproj2/file.cpp
../sampleproj2/file.cpp:1:10: fatal error: boost/algorithm/string.hpp: No such file or directory
    1 | #include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:875: file.o] Error 1
15:02:39: The process "/usr/bin/make" exited with code 2.
Error while building/deploying project sampleproj2 (kit: Qt6)
When executing step "Make"
15:02:39: Elapsed time: 00:00.

There is a Build Environment setting. That allows environment variables to be passed to the compiler which we do not see on its command-line. Do you have anything of interest there?

One other random thought: you do not have a sub-directory named boost in, say, your source directory, or perhaps one level above it, do you??

nope

Does it only report one directory named boost? Just in /usr/include, nowhere else, right?

sudo find / -name boost -type d -print
find: ‘/run/user/1000/doc’: Permission denied
find: ‘/run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/boost
/usr/lib/llvm-14/include/clang-tidy/boost
/usr/include/boost
/usr/include/boost/hana/ext/boost
/usr/include/boost/chrono/typeof/boost

Last thing: you might try setting up a brand new project in a brand new directory as a Qt project. Add only the file.cpp containing just the #include line. Try to compile. Success or failure?

Failure as shown above.

JonB

@A123
You have answered all my questions, but I'm sorry I just cannot spot what is wrong. You have shown:

The file /usr/include/boost/algorithm/string.hpp really does exist.
Sample programs with #include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp> compiled outside of Qt Creator work fine.
Programs, including a standalone one-liner project, with that line compiled inside Creator complain "no such file".
From Creator I cannot see anything significant in the command-line or the environment passed to g++ which would change the include search path behaviour.

You might just verify one thing. So far you have used #include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp> which ought find /usr/include/boost/algorithm/string.hpp. Go look just in directory /usr/include/boost/ and pick some other .hpp or .h file which lives at that level. I don't know what is there. Say there is a boostfile.hpp. Then try #include <boost/boostfile.hpp>. I presume that fails equally? Otherwise if that succeeds there is something about the particular string.hpp file/path.

Whatever the issue it should be something really simple! If I had your machine in front of me I would be confident of diagnosing whatever it is. But as it stands I am out of ideas. You will need someone else to look through with a fresh pair of eyes to see if they can spot what it might be.

A123

@JonB it also fails with other files. As a workaround I finally just moved boost to the Documents folder and it picked it up. It might be due to my system folders being on a separate partition which is standard practice in linux installs.