The CMake Build Manager

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Download Unix binaries: http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Download.html

Introduction

CMake is a cross platform build manager. It was developed to support a single input describing a build process that works on all platforms. However, instead of taking over the build process, it simply generates input for the native build tools. CMake can generate microsoft project files and various makefile formats for UNIX and Windows. With Visual Studio 6, 7, and 7.1 all having different project formats, CMake can be used to maintain support for all three versions in your project. In addition to porting the build system, CMake can be used to test the compiler for supported C++ features. CMake supports a full try/compile try/run system much like autoconf on UNIX. This will allow your code to take advantage of the supported features of the language as they become available.

Background

CMake is an Open Source project that has been in develpment for the past three years. For more information about CMake, see http://www.cmake.org/. Full source code for CMake can be downloaded from the the CMake homepage as well.

Using the Code

There are three directories involved. The top level directory has two subdirectories called ./Demo and ./Hello. In the directory ./Hello, a library is built. In the directory ./Demo, an executable is built by linking to the library. A total of three CMakeList.txt files are created: one for each directory.

The first, top-level directory contains the following CMakeLists.txt file.

# The name of our project is "HELLO".  CMakeLists files in this project can
# refer to the root source directory of the project as ${HELLO_SOURCE_DIR} and
# to the root binary directory of the project as ${HELLO_BINARY_DIR}.
PROJECT(HELLO)

# Recurse into the "Hello" and "Demo" subdirectories.  This does not actually
# cause another cmake executable to run.  The same process will walk through
# the project's entire directory structure.
SUBDIRS(Hello Demo)

# Create a library called "Hello" which includes the source file "hello.cxx".
# Any number of sources could be listed here.
ADD_LIBRARY(Hello hello.cxx)

# Make sure the compiler can find include files from our Hello library.
INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(${HELLO_SOURCE_DIR}/Hello)

# Make sure the linker can find the Hello library once it is built.
LINK_DIRECTORIES(${HELLO_BINARY_DIR}/Hello)

# Add executable called "helloDemo" that is built from the source files
# "demo.cxx" and "demo_b.cxx".  
ADD_EXECUTABLE(helloDemo demo.cxx demo_b.cxx)

# Link the executable to the Hello library.
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(helloDemo Hello)

CMake when executed in the top-level directory will process the CMakeLists.txt file and then descend into the listed subdirectories. Variables, include paths, library paths, etc. are inherited. Depending on the system, makefiles (Unix) or workspaces/projects (MSVC) will be built. These can then be used in the usual way to build the code.

History

• 1 Nov 2003 - updated download