Detecting the Boost libraries

The Boost libraries are a collection of general-purpose C++ libraries. These libraries provide a lot of functionality that may be indispensable in a modern C++ project, but which is not yet available through the C++ standard. For example, Boost provides components for metaprogramming, handling optional arguments, and filesystem manipulations, among others. Many of these libraries have later been adopted by the C++11, C++14, and C++17 standards, but many Boost components are still the libraries of choice for code bases that have to keep compatibility with older compilers.

This recipe will show you how to detect and link against some components of the Boost libraries.