# Configuration

&Boost.Thread; uses several configuration macros in <boost/config.hpp>, as well as configuration macros meant to be supplied by the application. These macros are documented here.

## Library Defined Public Macros

These macros are defined by &Boost.Thread; but are expected to be used by application code.

Macro | Meaning
--- | ---

BOOST_HAS_THREADS

Indicates that threading support is available. This means both that there is a platform specific implementation for &Boost.Thread; and that threading support has been enabled in a platform specific manner. For instance, on the Win32 platform there's an implementation for &Boost.Thread; but unless the program is compiled against one of the multithreading runtimes (often determined by the compiler predefining the macro _MT) the BOOST_HAS_THREADS macro remains undefined.

## Library Defined Implementation Macros

These macros are defined by &Boost.Thread; and are implementation details of interest only to implementors.

Macro | Meaning
--- | ---
BOOST_HAS_WINTHREADS | Indicates that the platform has the Microsoft Win32 threading libraries, and that they should be used to implement &Boost.Thread;.
BOOST_HAS_PTHREADS | Indicates that the platform has the POSIX pthreads libraries, and that they should be used to implement &Boost.Thread;.
BOOST_HAS_FTIME | Indicates that the implementation should use GetSystemTimeAsFileTime() and the FILETIME type to calculate the current time. This is an implementation detail used by boost::detail::getcurtime().
BOOST_HAS_GETTTIMEOFDAY | Indicates that the implementation should use gettimeofday() to calculate the current time. This is an implementation detail used by boost::detail::getcurtime().