The Boost.Build configuration is specified in the file user-config.jam. You can edit the one that comes with Boost.Build, or create a copy in your home directory and edit that. (See the reference for the exact search paths.) The primary function of that file is to declare which compilers and other tools are available. The simplest syntax to configure a tool is:

using tool-name ;        

The using rule is given a name of tool, and will make that tool available to Boost.Build. For example, using gcc ; will make the gcc compiler available.

Since nothing but a tool name is specified, Boost.Build will pick some default settings. For example, it will use the gcc executable found in the PATH, or look in some known installation locations. In most cases, this strategy works automatically. In case you have several versions of a compiler, it's installed in some unusual location, or you need to tweak its configuration, you'll need to pass additional parameters to the using rule. The parameters to using can be different for each tool. You can obtain specific documentation for any tool's configuration parameters by invoking

bjam --help tool-name.init         

That said, for all the compiler toolsets Boost.Build supports out-of-the-box, the list of parameters to using is the same: toolset-name, version, invocation-command, and options.

The version parameter identifies the toolset version, in case you have several installed. It can have any form you like, but it's recommended that you use a numeric identifier like 7.1.

The invocation-command parameter is the command that must be executed to run the compiler. This parameter can usually be omitted if the compiler executable

For example:

using msvc : 7.1 ;
using gcc ;

If the compiler can be found in the PATH but only by a nonstandard name, you can just supply that name:

using gcc : : g++-3.2 ;

Otherwise, it might be necessary to supply the complete path to the compiler executable:

using msvc : : Z:/Programs/Microsoft Visual Studio/vc98/bin/cl ;

Some Boost.Build toolsets will use that path to take additional actions required before invoking the compiler, such as calling vendor-supplied scripts to set up its required environment variables.

To configure several versions of a toolset, simply invoke the using rule multiple times:

using gcc : 3.3 ;
using gcc : 3.4 : g++-3.4 ;
using gcc : 3.2 : g++-3.2 ;

Note that in the first call to using, the compiler found in the PATH will be used, and there's no need to explicitly specify the command.

As shown above, both the version and invocation-command parameters are optional, but there's an important restriction: if you configure the same toolset more than once, you must pass the version parameter every time. For example, the following is not allowed:

using gcc ;
using gcc : 3.4 : g++-3.4 ;

because the first using call does not specify a version.

The options parameter is used to fine-tune the configuration. All of Boost.Build's standard compiler toolsets accept properties of the four builtin features cflags, cxxflags, compileflags and linkflags as options specifying flags that will be always passed to the corresponding tools. Values of the cflags feature are passed directly to the C compiler, values of the cxxflags feature are passed directly to the C++ compiler, and values of the compileflags feature are passed to both. For example, to configure a gcc toolset so that it always generates 64-bit code you could write:

using gcc : 3.4 : : <compileflags>-m64 <linkflags>-m64 ;