[CMake] XML CMake ?

sten.rosendahl at sungard.com sten.rosendahl at sungard.com
Sat Feb 26 14:15:22 EST 2005


Interestingly enough, the Ant community recently had the same discussion on finding alternative text front-ends to the current raw XML syntax. See http://www.pault.com/pault/pxml/xmlalternatives.html for some options.
 
Sten Rosendahl

	Jorgen Bodde wrote: 
	

	Hi guys,
	
	Just out of curiosity. Why isn't CMAKE handling a flavor of XML for it's
	make system ? Personally I think the scripting language used now is a
	bit outdated. It gets the job done, but it's horrid when it needs to be
	parsed back, and very error prone and redundant (speaking of IF .. END
	constructions).
	
	Let me explain what I was thinking of a while ago... I was wondering if
	it was possible to create a config tool such as istool (belonging to
	inno setup). For those who don't know it, it is a graphical tool that
	allows the user to compose an install script for InnoSetup.
	
	I wondered how difficult this would be for CMake to make a config tool
	that allows the user to create projects in a GUI instead of with plain
	text. I then realised parsing the current language would be too much of
	an effort and wondering why not make something like XML based CMake
	scripts ? Maybe the name CMakeLists.xml could be used to point out the
	difference and let CMake parse the XML instead.
	
	Just an idea, I am happy with CMake for the current projects, but it is
	always nice to see improvement, and XML is perfect for this. There are a
	lot of build tools that use the XML markup which is a big plus because
	people are familiar with the markup already.
	
	Regards,
	- Jorgen
	



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