As a project user, what do I need to do to make a project with Cmake?

Question

I'm working with a project that [used to] support both Autotools and Cmake. In the past, I would:

cd project/build
...
../llvm/configure --enable-optimized --enable-cxx11 $OTHER_OPTIONS --prefix=/usr/local
make -j2
sudo make install

The project has kind of abandoned it support for Autotools, so I have to use Cmake now. Using Cmake to configure seems like it should be relatively easy.

Unfortunately, Mac OS X lacks man pages for Cmake, so I can't RTFM. And the search hits I am finding discuss how to build Cmake packages (and other stuff package maintainers would do), and not how to use it as a dumb project user.

I tried to simply use Cmake in place of Configure, but it did not work:

$ cd project/build
$ OTHER_OPTIONS=" --enable-libcpp"; cmake ../llvm --enable-optimized --enable-cxx11 "$OTHER_OPTIONS" --prefix=/usr/local
CMake Error: The source directory ".../clang-3.6/build/--prefix=/usr/local" does not exist.

Why is Cmake treating a configuration option like a directory ( --prefix=/usr/local )?

How do I configure and build a project that uses Cmake as a dumb project user?

Answer 1

You're trying to configure a CMake project like it was autotools. The syntax of the command is;

cmake -Doptions -Dmore_options src_dir

src directory is the last argument, which is why it treats --prefix that way. You will need to know the name of the parameters available to you though. If you're new to CMake, your best bet is to run, either the Qt gui or the curses gui ( ccmake /path/to/src while your in the build directory ). Those gui tools will let you pick your options, configure then generate. Then all you need is to type make ....

Note

cmake --help

does provide info even if your man pages aren't installed. Also, if you have access to google and the internet, searching "cmake man page" should give you access the your missing man pages.