Using cmake to compile

Question

I come from a unixy background, so tend to prefer command-line style automation over ide's.

I'm tryng to get deeper into windows development. I have previously written programs on Windows just using the cl compiler to compile the c code. I'd like to move to an automated build system like cmake.

I can get cmake to create an Visual Studio solution, which will compile. But that is not quite what I am looking for. What I am looking for is for cmake to invoke to cl to compile/link the code itself, just like make invokes gcc.

Is cmake able to do this or would Scons be better suited for me?

Look at the cmake --build command.

drescherjm
– drescherjm

2012-05-21 12:59:40 +00:00
Commented May 21, 2012 at 12:59 — drescherjm
– drescherjm, Commented May 21, 2012 at 12:59

Bill Hoffman · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-22 15:10:37Z

1

Once you have your project created with CMake, cmake can also run the build.

cd builddir cmake --build .

You can also use CMake to create nmake or jom (parallel nmake) makefiles, or even gmake. So, it is certainly possible to use CMake from the command line and use VS compilers.

answered May 22, 2012 at 15:10

Bill Hoffman

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3 Comments

rhlee Over a year ago

That is nearly what I want to do. But in this case cmake invokes other external build tools. Does cmake have it's own native makefile format that would invoke cl (or any other compiler) directly instead of going through *make tools?

Brady Over a year ago

@rhlee, SCons directly supports parallel building without needing external tools: scons -j 4 will compile 4 tasks in parallel

Peter Over a year ago

CMake doesn't work that way. Why do you want to avoid using other tools? You need a compiler anyway, so at least nmake is likely to be installed as well.

rhlee · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-24 11:55:40Z

1

Found out, as per Peter's comment, that cmake is a build-generator tool. It's generates makefiles that external build tools can run. So I'll either use cmake+namke or scons.

answered May 24, 2012 at 11:55

rhlee

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Comments

Brady · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-21 12:27:35Z

-1

Im not so sure about cmake, but SCons has some builders dedicated just to Microsoft Visual Studio.

Look for the following in the SCons builder documentation:

MSVSProject()
MSVSSolution()

Plus SCons has a much nicer syntax, its python! :)

edited May 21, 2012 at 12:27

answered May 21, 2012 at 12:15

Brady

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