MinGW is the premiere free non-Microsoft compiler for Windows. Even if you're primarily using Microsoft's compiler, compiling with MinGW, which is based on GCC, can give you a great head start to making your code compile with Unix. Additionally, if you want to use C++11 features, you can forget about doing it from a Windows XP box using a Microsoft compiler. Their cool new tools will compile to Windows XP, but can only be used on Windows 7 and up.

Installing MinGW it is fall off a log simple, but as I'm doing it on my old netbook right now I thought I'd document the process.

First, visiti the getting started page on MinGW's official website and download and run mingw-get-inst (you'll see it linked in the first few steps). Select “Download the latest repository catalogues” during the installation. Keep the default directory of C:\MinGW (the short path and lack of spaces helps with some tools). You can also select various compilers during the graphical installer, but don't, to relish the wonderful experience of installing these components from the command line.

Now add “C:\MinGW\bin” to the path.

Now install the following:

mingw-get install gcc
mingw-get install g++
mingw-get install mingw32-make

Working with Boost

The best way to work with Boost is to download the code and compile the libraries yourself. It's not easy, but controlling it yourself can offer insight into how these libraries are created and an appreciation for how portable it is.

Boost uses a special tool called Boost Build. You can think of this as an extremely flexible Make- once you've created your build script, you can build multiple configurations. For example, you can create a release version using Microsoft Visual C++ by invoking Boost Build one way, and then create a debug version with Gcc by invoking it another. Given that so much of C++ (and C) centers around how you build your code, it's nice that Boost Build abstracts this decision away from you until the end.

When you compile Boost itself, you need to be aware though that some options aren't configurable. One is whether or not you use the C++11 extensions for Gcc- Boost Build currently is not aware of this feature, so you need to remember it yourself. If you compile Boost for GCC without the C++11 flags set, it won't work with anything you compile using the C++ flags. So however you choose to use GCC, be consistent!

I recommend you use the GNU extensions because it works a little better with the Boost libraries. This involves passing the argument “-std=gnu++11” to the gcc compiler.

Building Boost

Download Boost from the official site. I have a program for all my tools, which I creatively named “C:\Tools”. Under this, I have a directory named “Boost”, and under that there's directories for every version of Boost I've downloaded.

I'm downloading Boost 1.52, so it's going to live in C:\Tools\Boost\boost_1_52_0.

Set the environment variable BOOST_ROOT to this path (again, ]I use a batch file to set up all these environment variables to avoid polluting the path). That's because Boost Build needs to have this set to work properly.

Now, in a command prompt enter that directory and type the following:

bootstrap.bat gcc
b2 --toolset=gcc cxxflags=-std=gnu++11 --build-type=complete stage cxxflags="-include cmath "

Again, gnu++11 is to make sure you build Boost with the C++11 features plus certain Gnu compiler extensions for maximum compatibility with Boost. The “-include cmath” works around a current issue building parts of Boost Python.

At this point go defrost a turkey because building Boost takes forever.

Once it's finished, congratulations! You can now take advantage of Boost in your programs.