bjam boost_build PWD question

johnsfine · 10-10-2014, 08:46 AM

I hope there are some experts in bjam here.

I want a way to get pwd inside boost without following sym links.

In bash, I can use $(pwd) and get the current directory. That does what I want (doesn't follow sym links).

In the bjam language, you get current directory with [ PWD ] but that follows sym links and gives you the destination of the sym link, which is not what I want.

example:
cd /foo/bar
where /foo/bar is a sym link to /elsewhere
bash $(pwd) gives you /foo/bar
bjam [ PWD ] gives you /elsewhere

johnsfine · 10-10-2014, 09:00 AM

Never mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnsfine

I want a way to get pwd inside boost without following sym links.

I don't know why the obvious answer was so non obvious until I posted the question, but suddenly became obvious just because I posted.

In the situations where the difference (sym link or not) matters to me, there is also an environment variable PWD.

In bjam
PWD ?= [ PWD ] ;
defines a bjam variable as the environment variable if it was defined and the result of the PWD function only if the environment variable wasn't defined. Then I use
$(PWD) instead of [ PWD ] where I actually need it.

Sorry I bothered you.

johnsfine · 10-10-2014, 04:33 PM

Back to the original question.

This build code is run in many environments, including Linux where the $PWD environment variable is correct and various Windows situations where $PWD is either correct or missing. But there is also a Windows environment where the $PWD environment variable is present but wrong.

That is hard for me to test for and this is getting messy. So I'm back to the original question of how to get the current directory in bjam language, but without following sym links.