On Saturday, January 5, 2019 6:53:06 PM CET Bruno Haible wrote: > Hi, > > Andrew Pennebaker wrote: > > Could we improve how gnulib integrates with downstream projects, to make > > it > > easier to work with different build tools? In particular, would be helpful > > for gnulib to easily work with cmake projects. > > > > In my case, I have an application that needs openat(), and I already have > > a > > complex cmake configuration that would be difficult to rewrite in terms of > > autotools. > > I don't think we will spend time to make gnulib-tool generate cmake > configurations. > 1. Because the GNU build system is based on Autotools. > 2. Because many people say that cmake is a horror to use. [1][2]
That is not an argument. You can find similar horror stories about autotools: http://voices.canonical.com/jussi.pakkanen/2011/09/13/autotools/ > But gnulib-tool by design creates a subdirectory, and you can yourself > - add a simple configure.ac to that subdirectory, as outlined in the > documentation [3], When I needed it 10 years ago, I was able to get around this limitation by using the --create-testdir option of gnulib-tool. It created a directory with configure script that (after running make) produced a static library. I am not sure if this approach had any side effects, like turning on debug build, but I was at least not forced to create configure.ac etc. Kamil > - integrate this subdirectory with cmake through an 'ExternalProject' [4]. > > If, during this process, you encounter pain points that require (small) > gnulib-tool changes, please come back to us and report them. > > Bruno > > [1] > https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/4flb8z/fighting_through_a_cmake_hell/ > [2] > https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/7yps20/its_time_to_do_cmake_right/ > [3] > https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/Initial-import.html > [4] > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5971921/building-a-library-using-autoto > ols-from-cmake