Getting Started

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## Getting Started

### Installation

Boost.Compute is available in Boost starting with version 1.61. Visit http://www.boost.org/users/download/ for download instructions.

### Compilation and Usage

Boost.Compute is a header-only library, so no linking is required. To use the library just add the include directory to the compilation flags and link with the system's OpenCL library. For example, with GCC:

    g++ -I/path/to/compute/include main.cpp -lOpenCL

All of the Boost.Compute headers can be included with the following directive:

    #include <boost/compute.hpp>

If you only want to include the core OpenCL wrapper headers (which have minimal dependencies on the rest of Boost), use the following directive:

    #include <boost/compute/core.hpp>

All of the classes and functions in Boost.Compute live in the `boost::compute` namespace and can be brought into global scope with:

    using namespace boost::compute;

### Configuration Macros

Boost.Compute provides a number of optional features which can be configured with the following macros.

Macro | Description
--- | ---
`BOOST_COMPUTE_DEBUG_KERNEL_COMPILATION` | When defined, if program::build() fails, the program source and build log will be written to stdout.
`BOOST_COMPUTE_HAVE_THREAD_LOCAL` | Enables the use of C++11 `thread_local` storage specifier.
`BOOST_COMPUTE_THREAD_SAFE` | Builds Boost.Compute in a thread-safe mode. This requires either support for C++11 thread-local storage (via defining the `BOOST_COMPUTE_HAVE_THREAD_LOCAL` macro) or linking with Boost.Thread.
`BOOST_COMPUTE_USE_OFFLINE_CACHE` | Enables the offline-cache which stores compiled binaries on disk. This option requires linking with Boost.Filesystem and Boost.System.

### Support

Bugs and issues can be reported to the issue tracker.

There is also a mailing list for users and developers at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/boost-compute.

Look through the FAQ to see if you're encountering a known or common issue.