[GRASS-dev] cmake

[Glynn Clements]

Sören Gebbert wrote:

> > I am not advocating move GRASS to it, as the build system seems to work
> > pretty well, but I would like to hear about the pros/cons of using cmake
> > instead of automake?

> Cmake is written in pure C++, so you only need a C++ compiler to get it 
> to run, there are no other dependencies.

On some platforms, requiring a (working) C++ compiler is a fairly
signficant hurdle. We still aim to support any Unix platform which
isn't irreparably broken (by which, I mean Ultrix, Xenix, platforms
with 16-bit "int"s or anything without an ANSI C compiler). Simply
lacking a functional g++ port doesn't count.

> I would like to see that grass switches from autotools to cmake.

GRASS doesn't use autotools in any signficant sense.

It uses autoconf to generate the configure script, but the configure
script is included in source tarballs and in CVS, so the user doesn't
need to have autoconf installed in order to compile GRASS. Developers
only need autoconf if they want to modify configure.in.

GRASS doesn't use automake, autoheader, libtool etc.

> And i would be happy to support this step.
> Also if we want to establish GRASS on windows systems, this will
> be valuable.

On (native) Windows, the requirement to use GNU make is the least of
the hurdles. You need a Bourne shell and fileutils to even use GRASS,
let alone compile it, and that isn't likely to change in the
foreseeable future.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>