[CMake] ExternalProject_Add and Boost

[Knox, Kent]

That is an interesting approach; if this 'superbuild' cmake project downloaded and built all the external dependencies first, then my project could find those dependencies with the appropriate find module?  I suppose that the 'superbuild' could set the BOOST_ROOT variable (or other appropriate variables) for my real project.  I'll play around with this idea when I get some time, thanks for the comment!

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Medina [mailto:ben.medina at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 11:59 AM
To: Knox, Kent
Cc: cmake at cmake.org
Subject: Re: [CMake] ExternalProject_Add and Boost

> 4.       ExternalProject_Add will download, configure and build projects at
> 'build' time.  From the documentation, this sounded like a design decision.
> However, this means that you can't use the already robust and mature
> findboost() module to configure the Boost project.  Would it be 
> possible to add support to ExternalProject_Add to work at 'configure' time?

The approach that seems most common is to create a "superbuilder"
project that builds your dependencies as external projects, then builds your own project (also as an external project) at the end.