[CMake] General questions

[Mike Jackson]

--  
Mike Jackson   Senior Research Engineer
Innovative Management & Technology Services


On Feb 23, 2008, at 4:34 AM, Yang Zhang wrote:

> Hi, I just finished reading the example in the documentation on the  
> website, and am left with a few beginner questions off the top of  
> my head:
>
> - How do I generate multiple versions of my program (debug,  
> profiled, optimized, etc.)?

CMake prefers an "out of source" build tree for each "configuration"  
of your project. For example if your project is called MyProject,  
then at the same level as MyProject folder, create a new folder  
called MyProject-Debug. Change into the MyProject-Debug directory and  
then run "ccmake ../MyProject" from the terminal. Change the  
selection for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to "Debug". Type "C" to configure,  
then type "g" to generate the Makefiles. For a release build, create  
another directory called MyProject-Release and basically do the same  
thing as before except set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to Release.

You can also create these directories just "inside" your project  
folder. If you do that you can change to "ccmake ../" instead of  
"ccmake ../MyProject". Sometimes this type of setup works better for  
some IDEs (Eclipse is one).

>
> - Can cmake auto-generate and cache transitive dependencies via  
> #includes (best described in Peter Miller's paper "Recursive Make  
> Considered Harmful")?

I have no idea what a ransitive dependencies is, BUT cmake is more  
than capable of generating custom header files based on input from  
the cmake files. Look at the "CONFIGURE_FILE" command. run "cmake -- 
help-command CONFIGURE_FILE" in a terminal.

>
> - Can cmake auto-infer libraries based on #includes + a DB of  
> header-to-library mappings?

Not sure. I'll let the cmake developers answer that one.
>
> - Can cmake generate autotools inputs (for POSIX-portable  
> preferably-GNU-compliant packaging)?

CMake is a _replacement_ for AutoTools but NOT make. CMake will  
generate a system specific MakeFile for the system it is run on. The  
Makefiles are NOT portable across systems unless those systems are  
EXACT MIRROR COPIES of each other. Running cmake is the same as  
doing ./configure in an autotools project.

CMake has CTest for automatic testing (make test) will build and run  
your tests.

CMake also has CPack for packaging your project for various platforms.


>
> Thanks!
> -- 
> Yang Zhang
> http://www.mit.edu/~y_z/

Mike Jackson