Using boost with Bazel under Windows 10 and Visual Studio Community 2019

Question

I have set up a simple C++ program that makes use of the boost filesystem module. To build the program I use Bazel 0.25.0. I am working under Windows 10 x64. I installed Visual Studio 2019 Community Edtion and set BAZEL_VC to E:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC. I have installed the MSYS2 shell.

Here are my files (can be found also on GitHub):

WORKSPACE

workspace(name = "BoostFilesystemDemo")

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:git.bzl", "git_repository")

# Boost
git_repository(
    name = "com_github_nelhage_rules_boost",
    commit = "6681419da0163d097d4e09c0756c0d8b785d2aa8",
    remote = "https://github.com/nelhage/rules_boost",
    shallow_since = "1556401984 -0700"
)

load("@com_github_nelhage_rules_boost//:boost/boost.bzl", "boost_deps")
boost_deps()

main.cpp

#include <iostream>
#include <boost/filesystem.hpp>

using namespace boost::filesystem;

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    if (argc < 2)
    {
        std::cout << "Usage: tut1 path\n";
        return 1;
    }
    std::cout << argv[1] << " " << file_size(argv[1]) << '\n';
    return 0;
}

BUILD

cc_binary(
    name = "FilesystemTest",
    srcs = ["main.cpp"],
    deps = [
            "@boost//:filesystem",
    ],
)

When I try to build I receive the following error message (unfortunately mixed with some German language - Datei kann nicht gefunden werden means file not found)

PS E:\dev\BazelDemos\BoostFilesystemDemo> bazel build //...
INFO: Analyzed target //:FilesystemTest (0 packages loaded, 0 targets configured).
INFO: Found 1 target...
ERROR: E:/dev/bazeldemos/boostfilesystemdemo/BUILD:1:1: Linking of rule '//:FilesystemTest' failed (Exit 1104)
LINK : fatal error LNK1104: Datei "libboost_filesystem-vc141-mt-x64-1_68.lib" kann nicht ge÷ffnet werden.
Target //:FilesystemTest failed to build
Use --verbose_failures to see the command lines of failed build steps.
INFO: Elapsed time: 1.175s, Critical Path: 0.12s
INFO: 0 processes.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully

Does anyone have some idea to fix this problem (compiling the source using Bazel 0.25.0 or up, Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition, Windows 10 x64, Target should be x64)? Using Ubuntu 18.04 everything went fine.

Switching to another git repository that provides boost is also fine for me.

I want to also to use other parts of the boost library such as boost signals2, boost log, boost algorithm and boost compute.

Answer 1

Modify the BUILD.boost this way:

diff --git a/BUILD.boost b/BUILD.boost
index a3a2195..2cffdda 100644
--- a/BUILD.boost
+++ b/BUILD.boost
@@ -623,6 +623,14 @@ boost_library(
         ":system",
         ":type_traits",
     ],
+    defines = select({
+        ":linux_arm": [],
+        ":linux_x86_64": [],
+        ":osx_x86_64": [],
+        ":windows_x86_64": [
+            "BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB",
+        ],
+    }),
 )

 boost_library(
@@ -1491,6 +1499,14 @@ boost_library(
         ":predef",
         ":utility",
     ],
+    defines = select({
+        ":linux_arm": [],
+        ":linux_x86_64": [],
+        ":osx_x86_64": [],
+        ":windows_x86_64": [q
+            "BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB",

I cloned the rules_boost repo and applied the above changes - the cloned repository can be used direclty in the WORKSPACE file:

workspace(name = "BoostFilesystemDemo")

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:git.bzl", "git_repository")

# Boost
git_repository(
    name = "com_github_nelhage_rules_boost",
    commit = "f0d2a15d6dd5f0667cdaa6da9565ccf87b84c468",
    remote = "https://github.com/Vertexwahn/rules_boost",
    shallow_since = "1557766870 +0200"
)

load("@com_github_nelhage_rules_boost//:boost/boost.bzl", "boost_deps")
boost_deps()

Currently, a pull request is running to merge these changes into the original repository: https://github.com/nelhage/rules_boost/pull/123