[ARROW-6585] [C++] Create "ARROW_LIBRARIES" argument to pass list of desired components to build

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: C++
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/22942
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Wes McKinney
• Created: 17/Sep/19 18:17
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 07:48

Description

Our current DARROW_* flag system strikes me as a little bit tedious. When invoking Boost's build system, you can pass the argument -with-libraries=filesystem,regex,system to indicate which components you want to see built.

I think we should do a couple of things declare all component dependencies in a central place. Presently we have many "if" statements toggling on dependencies on an ad hoc basis. The code looks like this

if(ARROW_FLIGHT OR ARROW_PARQUET OR ARROW_BUILD_TESTS)
  set(ARROW_IPC ON)
endif()

if(ARROW_IPC AND NOT ARROW_JSON)
  message(FATAL_ERROR "JSON support is required for Arrow IPC")
endif()

I don't think this is going to be scalable.

Secondly, I think we should make it easier to ask for a comprehensive build. E.g. -DARROW_LIBRARIES=everything or similar