How to determine the Boost version on a system?

Question

Is there a quick way to determine the version of the Boost C++ libraries on a system?

Answer 1

Boost Informational Macros. You need: BOOST_VERSION

Answer 2

Include #include <boost/version.hpp>

std::cout << "Using Boost "     
          << BOOST_VERSION / 100000     << "."  // major version
          << BOOST_VERSION / 100 % 1000 << "."  // minor version
          << BOOST_VERSION % 100                // patch level
          << std::endl;

Possible output: Using Boost 1.75.0

Tested with Boost 1.51.0 to 1.63, 1.71.0 and 1.76.0 to 1.83.0

Answer 3

If you only need to know for your own information, just look in /usr/include/boost/version.hpp (Ubuntu 13.10) and read the information directly

Answer 4

#include <boost/version.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "Boost version: " 
          << BOOST_VERSION / 100000
          << "."
          << BOOST_VERSION / 100 % 1000
          << "."
          << BOOST_VERSION % 100 
          << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Update: the answer has been fixed.

Answer 5

Depending on how you have installed boost and what OS you are running you could also try the following:

dpkg -s libboost-dev | grep 'Version'

Answer 6

Boost installed on OS X using homebrew has desired version.hpp file in /usr/local/Cellar/boost/<version>/include/boost/version.hpp (note, that the version is already mentioned in path).

I guess the fastest way to determine version on any UNIX-like system will be to search for boost in /usr:

find /usr -name "boost"

Answer 7

As to me, you can first(find version.hpp the version variable is in it, if you know where it is(in ubuntu it usually in /usr/include/boost/version.hpp by default install)):

 locate `boost/version.hpp`

Second show it's version by:

 grep BOOST_LIB_VERSION /usr/include/boost/version.hpp

or

  grep BOOST_VERSION /usr/include/boost/version.hpp.

As to me, I have two version boost installed in my system. Output as below:

xy@xy:~$ locate boost/version.hpp |grep boost

/home/xy/boost_install/boost_1_61_0/boost/version.hpp
/home/xy/boost_install/lib/include/boost/version.hpp
/usr/include/boost/version.hpp

xy@xy:~$ grep BOOST_VERSION /usr/include/boost/version.hpp
#ifndef BOOST_VERSION_HPP
#define BOOST_VERSION_HPP
//  BOOST_VERSION % 100 is the patch level
//  BOOST_VERSION / 100 % 1000 is the minor version
//  BOOST_VERSION / 100000 is the major version
#define BOOST_VERSION 105800
//  BOOST_LIB_VERSION must be defined to be the same as BOOST_VERSION

# or this way more readable
xy@xy:~$ grep BOOST_LIB_VERSION /usr/include/boost/version.hpp
//  BOOST_LIB_VERSION must be defined to be the same as BOOST_VERSION
#define BOOST_LIB_VERSION "1_58"

Show local installed version:

xy@xy:~$ grep BOOST_LIB_VERSION /home/xy/boost_install/lib/include/boost/version.hpp
//  BOOST_LIB_VERSION must be defined to be the same as BOOST_VERSION
#define BOOST_LIB_VERSION "1_61"

Answer 8

@Vertexwahns answer, but written in bash. For the people who are lazy:

boost_version=$(cat /usr/include/boost/version.hpp | grep define | grep "BOOST_VERSION " | cut -d' ' -f3)
echo "installed boost version: $(echo "$boost_version / 100000" | bc).$(echo "$boost_version / 100 % 1000" | bc).$(echo "$boost_version % 100 " | bc)"

Gives me installed boost version: 1.71.0

Answer 9

I stugeled to find out the boost version number in bash.

Ended up doing following, which stores the version code in a variable, supressing the errors. This uses the example from maxschlepzig in the comments of the accepted answer. (Can not comment, don't have 50 Rep)

I know this has been answered long time ago. But I couldn't find how to do it in bash anywhere. So I thought this might help someone with the same problem. Also this should work no matter where boost is installed, as long as the comiler can find it. And it will give you the version number that is acutally used by the comiler, when you have multiple versions installed.

{
VERS=$(echo -e '#include <boost/version.hpp>\nBOOST_VERSION' | gcc -s -x c++ -E - | grep "^[^#;]")
} &> /dev/null

Answer 10

Another way to get current boost version (Linux Ubuntu):

~$ dpkg -s libboost-dev | grep Version
Version: 1.58.0.1ubuntu1

Ref: https://www.osetc.com/en/how-to-install-boost-on-ubuntu-16-04-18-04-linux.html

Answer 11

cat /usr/local/include/boost/version.hpp | grep BOOST_LIB_VERSION

Answer 12

If one installed boost on macOS via Homebrew, one is likely to see the installed boost version(s) with:

ls /usr/local/Cellar/boost*

Answer 13

Might be already answered, but you can try this simple program to determine if and what installation of boost you have :

#include<boost/version.hpp>
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout<<BOOST_VERSION<<endl;
return 0;
}

Answer 14

All the answers above are pretty good. However, I wondered if I can type in my terminal simple command boost --version just like I usually do for any other tool. So I implemented it in C++:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <boost/version.hpp>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    if (argc >= 2) {
        if (std::string arg(argv[1]); arg == "--version" || arg == "-v") {
            auto major_version = BOOST_VERSION / 100000;
            auto minor_version = BOOST_VERSION / 100 % 1000;
            auto patch_version = BOOST_VERSION % 100;

            std::cout   
                << "Boost library version: "
                << major_version << '.'
                << minor_version << '.'
                << patch_version << '\n';
        }
        else if (arg == "--help" || arg == "-h") {
            std::cout
                << "This is small helper utility to figure out installed Boost version.\n"
                << "Use --version parameter to print installed Boost library version.\n\n"
                << "Boost is a set of libraries for the C++ programming language that provides\n"
                << "support for tasks and structures such as linear algebra, pseudorandom number\n"
                << "generation, multithreading, image processing, regular expressions, and unit testing.\n"
                << "If you want to know more about Boost please visit https://www.boost.org\n";
        }
        else {
            std::cout
                << "Unknown parameter " << arg 
                << ". Use --version or --help as a parameter instead.\n";
        }
    }
}

Then I built it using following command:
g++ -Wextra -Wall -pedantic -std=c++20 main.cpp -o boost
to get executable named just "boost". When it has been done I copied this executable to my /usr/bin using following command:
sudo cp -r ./boost /usr/bin
Since then I'm able to type in my terminal boost --version to figure out installed Boost version.