Remove full boost package

[mkoeppe]

(from #29620)

We propose to remove the full boost package, which was added in 2016 (#20754, #20776) and updated once in 2018 (#26597), and only offer our cropped version of boost, which is enough for all of our packages.

We argue that it's not Sage's job to provide a full boost installation.

[jhpalmieri]

I don't see boost listed as a dependency for any other package or any doctests that depend on it. Can we just delete build/pkgs/boost?

[fbissey]

No doctests depend on it. It can be used instead of boost_cropped though. The point of it is that some people wanted the full boost rather than a little bit being available in sage. Either because they wanted to use it or install packages through pip that may need it.

Some optional packages could have undeclared dependency but chances are low.

As we move to use more and more system packages - including boost, I am OK with a move to remove it.

[jhpalmieri]

Replying to fbissey:

Some optional packages could have undeclared dependency but chances are low.

Especially since our boost package has been around so long as an optional package.

As we move to use more and more system packages - including boost, I am OK with a move to remove it.

Right, and boost_cropped will skip installation and use the system boost if it's present.

[fbissey]

Replying to jhpalmieri:

Replying to fbissey:

As we move to use more and more system packages - including boost, I am OK with a move to remove it.

Right, and boost_cropped will skip installation and use the system boost if it's present.

Exactly. boost is a somewhat high demand maintenance package. There are regular releases and the build system is highly unusual. Working on it has shown some interesting quirks. I won't be sorry to see it go.

[jhpalmieri]

I think that the boost options in ./configure should be kept (so that users can specify non-standard locations for a boost library), but I'm not sure.

[fbissey]

The boost option in configure is provided from build/pkgs/boost_cropped/spkg-configure.m4 if I am not mistaken. The stuff in the boost folder makes sure that boost and boost_cropped are not installed at the same time I think.

[jhpalmieri]

There is also m4/ax_boost_base.m4.

[fbissey]

Replying to jhpalmieri:

There is also m4/ax_boost_base.m4.

Yes, ​https://github.com/sagemath/sage/blob/develop/build/pkgs/boost_cropped/spkg-configure.m4's only job is to call it.

[jhpalmieri]

Here's a branch to consider.

---

New commits:

​0c0caa2

trac 31575: remove the full boost package

[mkoeppe]

Distros information for boost for nix and void should be moved to boost_cropped. I haven't checked whether the other distro files are identical

[git]

Branch pushed to git repo; I updated commit sha1. New commits:

​3044c82

trac 31575: keep distro files nix.txt, void.txt for boost,

[jhpalmieri]

The other distro files are all identical.

[mkoeppe]

LGTM.

This is for the Sage 9.4 series, right? Then I don't set it to positive review yet - Volker's merging scripts do not look at the Milestone field - ​https://groups.google.com/g/sage-devel/c/EN8IOtySC-w/m/l9dVq3_2CQAJ

[jhpalmieri]

Okay, sounds good.

[dimpase]

with #30668 (autoconf 2.71), I see

$ ./bootstrap
...
configure.ac:43: installing 'config/missing'
m4/sage_spkg_configures.m4:498: warning: SAGE_SPKG_CONFIGURE_BOOST is m4_require'd but not m4_defun'd
m4/sage_spkg_configure.m4:159: SAGE_SPKG_DEPCHECK is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:692: _AS_IF_ELSE is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:699: AS_IF is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:692: _AS_IF_ELSE is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:699: AS_IF is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:699: AS_IF is expanded from...
m4/sage_spkg_collect.m4:69: SAGE_SPKG_COLLECT is expanded from...
m4/sage_spkg_configures.m4:498: the top level

and this is after make distclean bootstrap-clean.

[dimpase]

namely, the following is the fix:

build/pkgs/brial/spkg-configure.m4

@@ -1 +1 @@
 SAGE_SPKG_CONFIGURE([brial], [
   dnl Trac #31624: Avoid C++ ABI issues
-  SAGE_SPKG_DEPCHECK([gcc boost m4ri], [
+  SAGE_SPKG_DEPCHECK([gcc boost_cropped m4ri], [
     # If we're using the system m4ri and boost, ensure that we can
     # compile and run an executable linked against both libbrial and
     # libbrial_groebner (both are used by SageMath).

I'll open another ticket for this.

[dimpase]

Replying to dimpase:

namely, the following is the fix:

build/pkgs/brial/spkg-configure.m4

@@ -1 +1 @@
 SAGE_SPKG_CONFIGURE([brial], [
   dnl Trac #31624: Avoid C++ ABI issues
-  SAGE_SPKG_DEPCHECK([gcc boost m4ri], [
+  SAGE_SPKG_DEPCHECK([gcc boost_cropped m4ri], [
     # If we're using the system m4ri and boost, ensure that we can
     # compile and run an executable linked against both libbrial and
     # libbrial_groebner (both are used by SageMath).

I'll open another ticket for this.

fixed by #31871