'no symbolic links' option

[tjcw]

For reasons of getting a Windows build of another project to work, I want to build BOOST with copies of the header files in the boost/ directory rather than symbolic links. I have raised a feature issue here #423 .
I know how to get b2 to do the copies; the patch needed is this

--- a/src/tools/link.jam
+++ b/src/tools/link.jam
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ actions touch {
 
 rule can-symlink ( project )
 {
+    .can-symlink = false ;
+    return false ;
     if ! $(.can-symlink)
     {
         local root-project = [ get-root-project $(project) ] ;

but I don't know how to do this conditionally; ideally it would depend on a command-line option such as ./b2 nosymlinks . Can anyone tell me how to do this ?

[tjcw]

It looks like what I want can be done with