[CMake] Suggestion for CMake platform/compiler detection

Brandon J. Van Every bvanevery at gmail.com
Thu Nov 16 23:36:03 EST 2006


Bill Hoffman wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Bill Hoffman wrote:
>>
>>> MSYS uses a version of bash, and MinGW uses the windows shell, and 
>>> cygwin uses bash,
>>> zsh, or some other more like unix. 
>>
>> Pedantically: MinGW doesn't "use" a shell.  MinGW is a compiler that 
>> could be run under straight Windows command prompt, under MSYS, or 
>> some perverts even run it under the Cygwin bash shell.  Also a few 
>> weirdos like myself, who find MSYS's Autoconf support to be 
>> completely broken, use a nonstandard bash shell for MSYS instead of 
>> the default rxvt.  http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-install 
>> really saved my bacon on some legacy Autoconf build issues I was having.
>>
>> So, I think shell identification is quite valuable.
> OK, you seemed to miss my point.   When you run cmake, you can detect 
> the shell used at cmake time.  However,
> there is no promise that that same shell will be used at make time.  
> That is the reason I had to create so many different named generators, 
> so that the user can tell me which shell they are going to use.   


Hrm.  I wonder if names like GENERATOR_MSYS, GENERATOR_MSVC71, etc. 
would make this relationship clearer to people.  It isn't burning a hole 
in my pocket, but something to consider about canonization.


> But if you need that information you can look at the generator used. 

I guess it's getting easier to find these variables, now that the CMake 
2.5 documentation has wiki URLs, but it would still be good to have them 
in the installed documentation.  I'm pinging bug / feature request #3752.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every




More information about the CMake mailing list