Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Is cmake -LAH what you want? Michael -- There is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Is cmake -LAH what you want? Michael Hi Michael, Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping that it would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running CMake. Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be used to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided by the developer, of course. Best regards, Marcel Loose. ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
2010/9/28 Marcel Loose lo...@astron.nl:
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote:
Hi all,
I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake
variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be
*very*
useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure
--help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set.
Best regards,
Marcel Loose.
Is cmake -LAH what you want?
Michael
Hi Michael,
Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping that it
would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running CMake.
Before running cmake... I don't know but keep reading.
Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be used
to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided by
the developer, of course.
You may do the following:
Write an HelpMe.cmake file which contains CMake comments
just like plain CMake do (see e.g. CPackRPM.cmake which contains many
variable descriptions)
then add the following custom target to your project:
add_custom_target(HelpMe
COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND}
-DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR} --help-module HelpMe
COMMENT Display User defined help)
this will use the --help-module option of cmake to display your custom help.
user can call the target
make HelpMe
and the help will be display.
You may want to call your target help but it would conflict/override
the cmake builtin help target
(at least for makefile generator) which display the list of available target.
This work AFTER cmake has been run. It could be run before as well using:
cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/path/to/source --help-module HelpMe
but this is awkward :-(
--
Erk
Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » -
http://www.april.org
___
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Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 10:12 , Marcel Loose wrote: On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Is cmake -LAH what you want? Michael Hi Michael, Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping that it would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running CMake. Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be used to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided by the developer, of course. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Not that I'd know of. I also think that this would be quite difficult to implement. You're far better off writing an extensive README or INSTALL document. Michael -- There is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 10:43 +0200, Michael Wild wrote: On 28. Sep, 2010, at 10:12 , Marcel Loose wrote: On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Is cmake -LAH what you want? Michael Hi Michael, Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping that it would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running CMake. Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be used to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided by the developer, of course. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Not that I'd know of. I also think that this would be quite difficult to implement. You're far better off writing an extensive README or INSTALL document. Michael -- There is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken That's a pity. Of course there's nothing against having a good, useful README and/or INSTALL file. But I also like to keep the documentation close to the code. The more documentation and code get separated, the higher the risk that the two diverge. Anyway, thanks for thinking with me. Best regards, Marcel Loose. ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 10:42 +0200, Eric Noulard wrote:
2010/9/28 Marcel Loose lo...@astron.nl:
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote:
Hi all,
I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable
CMake
variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be
*very*
useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known
configure
--help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be
set.
Best regards,
Marcel Loose.
Is cmake -LAH what you want?
Michael
Hi Michael,
Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping
that it
would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running
CMake.
Before running cmake... I don't know but keep reading.
Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be
used
to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided
by
the developer, of course.
You may do the following:
Write an HelpMe.cmake file which contains CMake comments
just like plain CMake do (see e.g. CPackRPM.cmake which contains many
variable descriptions)
then add the following custom target to your project:
add_custom_target(HelpMe
COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND}
-DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR} --help-module HelpMe
COMMENT Display User defined help)
this will use the --help-module option of cmake to display your
custom help.
user can call the target
make HelpMe
and the help will be display.
You may want to call your target help but it would conflict/override
the cmake builtin help target
(at least for makefile generator) which display the list of available
target.
This work AFTER cmake has been run. It could be run before as well
using:
cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/path/to/source --help-module HelpMe
but this is awkward :-(
Thanks Erk,
I'll give it a thought. Your solution uses some nice CMake features, but
I find it a bit awkward. It suffers from separation of code and
documentation, though. That's always risky, since the two are likely to
diverge.
Best regards,
Marcel Loose.
___
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Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On 28. Sep, 2010, at 11:03 , Marcel Loose wrote: On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 10:43 +0200, Michael Wild wrote: On 28. Sep, 2010, at 10:12 , Marcel Loose wrote: On 28. Sep, 2010, at 9:33 , Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Is cmake -LAH what you want? Michael Hi Michael, Well this is sort of what I was looking for, though I was hoping that it would be possible to list any useful variable *before* running CMake. Is there some kind of hook, e.g. 'cmake --custom-help', that can be used to display project-specific help. The help text should be provided by the developer, of course. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Not that I'd know of. I also think that this would be quite difficult to implement. You're far better off writing an extensive README or INSTALL document. Michael -- There is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken That's a pity. Of course there's nothing against having a good, useful README and/or INSTALL file. But I also like to keep the documentation close to the code. The more documentation and code get separated, the higher the risk that the two diverge. Anyway, thanks for thinking with me. Best regards, Marcel Loose. Of course, it would be ideal if CMake had a way of spewing out all the documentation strings of all the cache variables, but IMHO this is nigh impossible, e.g. what do you do with conditionally set cache variables? If you treat them as being unconditional, you might accidentally offer too many options which don't have any effect (perhaps it's a conditional on WIN32 or similar), or you might have conflicts (e.g. different doc strings and default values for WIN32 and UNIX). Michael -- There is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
2010/9/28 Marcel Loose lo...@astron.nl: You may want to call your target help but it would conflict/override the cmake builtin help target (at least for makefile generator) which display the list of available target. This work AFTER cmake has been run. It could be run before as well using: cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/path/to/source --help-module HelpMe but this is awkward :-( Thanks Erk, I'll give it a thought. Your solution uses some nice CMake features, but I find it a bit awkward. It suffers from separation of code and documentation, though. That's always risky, since the two are likely to diverge. It is a little bit, but you can put in this custom cmake file (you may rename it to CustomizableOptions.cmake) any CMake *code* you want including the definition of OPTION or vars (using SET) etc... then in you CMakeLists.txt you can include(CustomizableOptions.cmake) and the header of the file contains the useful doc. for the concerned option/vars. then the code and it's doc stay together. -- Erk Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
Marcel,
We use a 'bootstrap' CMakeCache.txt file that has README-like full
documentation for each user settable variable. This way a new developer can
copy the bootstrap CMakeCache.txt file to his/her build directory and edit
the file variable-by-variable before running cmake.
Something like:
# CMakeCache.txt - bootstrap file for new builds.
# Instructions.
# 1. Copy this file to your build directory as CMakeCache.txt.
# 2. Review and update all values in this file.
# 3. Environment must have $FC set to one of { ifort, gfortran or pathf90 }
# 4. From the build directory run 'cmake /full/path/to/source'
# Location where 'make install' will copy files to.
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/full/path/to/target/directory
# CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE == { Release, Debug, RelWithDebInfo, MinSizeRel }
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release
# CMAKE_GENERATOR == { NMake Makefiles, Unix Makefiles, Visual Studio 9
2008, Visual Studio 9 2008 Win64 }
CMAKE_GENERATOR:STRING=Unix Makefiles
etc.
Maybe that is too clunky for you -- but has worked well for us.
-kt
-Original Message-
From: cmake-boun...@cmake.org [mailto:cmake-boun...@cmake.org] On Behalf
Of
Eric Noulard
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:12 AM
To: Marcel Loose
Cc: cmake@cmake.org; them...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
2010/9/28 Marcel Loose lo...@astron.nl:
You may want to call your target help but it would conflict/override
the cmake builtin help target
(at least for makefile generator) which display the list of available
target.
This work AFTER cmake has been run. It could be run before as well
using:
cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/path/to/source --help-module HelpMe
but this is awkward :-(
Thanks Erk,
I'll give it a thought. Your solution uses some nice CMake features, but
I find it a bit awkward. It suffers from separation of code and
documentation, though. That's always risky, since the two are likely to
diverge.
It is a little bit, but you can put in this custom cmake file
(you may rename it to CustomizableOptions.cmake)
any CMake *code* you want including the definition of OPTION or vars
(using SET) etc...
then in you CMakeLists.txt you can
include(CustomizableOptions.cmake)
and the header of the file contains the useful doc. for the
concerned option/vars.
then the code and it's doc stay together.
--
Erk
Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » -
http://www.april.org
___
Powered by www.kitware.com
Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at:
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ
Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
___
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Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at:
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Re: [CMake] How to list user-definable CMake variables
On Tuesday 28 September 2010, Marcel Loose wrote: Hi all, I was wondering how I could generate a list of user-definable CMake variables. This list, with a brief help per variable, would be *very* useful for the end-user. It's a bit like the well-known configure --help which gives you a overview of all variables that can be set. Run cmake-gui, and check which variables appear after the first configure run in the non-advanced section. This should be the variables intended to be changed by the user (the one who compiles) Alex ___ Powered by www.kitware.com Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
