[bug] Boost Container is created and installed even when not explicitly requested on Boost 1.90.0

[uilianries]

Hello!

Summary

When building Boost 1.90.0 with a minimal environment, asking to build only program_options, Boost will actually build and install both program_options and container modules. It seems to be a transitive module asking for container and generating it. This scenario only happens for Boost 1.90.0, the previous version 1.89.0 does not result in this bug.

This report comes from conan-io/conan-center-index#29193

Environment

Boost: 1.90.0 (https://archives.boost.io/release/1.90.0/source/boost_1_90_0.tar.bz2)
OS: GNU/Linux 6.8.0
Distro: Ubuntu 22.04
Compiler: gcc (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~22.04.2) 11.4.0

Details

Locally, I can obtain the described result on Linux, but I have a report about the same scenario is possible on Apple OSX as well.

Steps to Reproduce

wget https://archives.boost.io/release/1.90.0/source/boost_1_90_0.tar.bz2
tar jxf boost_1_90_0.tar.bz2
cd boost_1_90_0/
./bootstrap.sh --with-toolset=gcc --prefix=/tmp/boost-1.90.0/install
./b2 --layout=system --with-program_options install  --prefix=/tmp/boost-1.90.0/install
ls /tmp/boost-1.90.0/install/lib/

The same steps can be reused for Boost 1.89.0, where libboost_container.a library will not be installed as expected.

Build logs

• Linux + Boost 1.90.0 + program-options only (bug): boost-1.90.0-linux-program-options.log

• Linux + Boost 1.89.0 + program-options only (no bug): boost-1.89.0-linux-program-options.log

Regards.