[cmake-developers] Extracting target metadata, IDE integration

[Tobias Hunger]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 6:17 PM, Peter Kümmel <syntheticpp at gmx.net> wrote:
> The idea was that qtcreator then also could parse and change the
> CMakeLists.txt file (like it is done with qbs files, I assume).

That would be a nice to have feature, yes, but I doubt that this will
ever be an option with cmake. And I personally do not want to pile
anything on top of cmake to enable this for a small subset of
still-to-be-written projects.

I would like to get to the point where you are able to build cmake
projects, configure them and have creator open the correct
CMakeLists.txt for you when you need to add/remove files to/from some
target. It will need work in Creator to get there, and I really do not
want that to end up relying on what I consider to be a implementation
detail of cmake -- like the format of (probably even undocumented)
files somewhere in the build directory that were meant for other
consumers.

This JSON file can be a step forward here: It is actually meant to be
used by IDEs, it has a format straight forward to parse, it does not
depend on the generator used, it will (hopefully;-) end up being
documented, it provides versioning, etc. I see some potential there.

Best Regards,
Tobias