[CMake] What about...

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Filipe Sousa wrote:
>
> There is always ccmake and cmakeseup. Another option is to create a tool
> called "cconfigure" for those who like configure scripts. That shouldn't
> be to hard to implement. cconfigure --help would show the same options
> as ccmake:
> $ ./cconfigure --help
> --cmake_build_type       Choose the type of build, options are: ...
> --cmake_install_prefix   Install path prefix, prepended onto install
>
>                          directories
> --cmake_verbose_makefile If this value is on, makefiles will be
>                          generated ...
> [more options]
>
> $ ./configure --cmake_build_type=release --cmake_install_prefix=/usr
>   --cmake_verbose_make_file=true ~/projects/my_project
> $ make
> $ make install
>   

"cconfigure" strikes me as a really bad naming choice.  People will 
forever be typing "configure" and wondering what's wrong.  You even did 
it yourself!

As for functionality: the point of an autoconf ./configure is that you 
don't need any special tool installed to run it.  If you have a Bourne 
shell, that's all you need.  Now, I suppose CMake could generate a 
./configure script of sorts, that expects a Makefile on a Unixy system 
and doesn't need any additional tools to run.  Like, CMake itself isn't 
needed.  This would be entirely comparable to what autoconf actually 
does.  You use autoconf to generate ./configure, then you throw autoconf 
away during the actual build.  The problem is, I bet CMake can't do all 
of the detection stuff with just Bourne shell code.  It's going to need 
to interpret CMake code, which means you'll need to have CMake 
installed, which means you've defeated the purpose of not needing any 
special tool installed.  If the user has got CMake, might as well train 
them to type "cmake --whatever". 

Another issue is that an autoconf ./configure script typically relies on 
libtool.  You don't wanna go there.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every

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