[cmake-developers] A variable for the role of the man who runs cmake?

[Yury G. Kudryashov]

Hi!

Sometimes I see discussions about default settings in buildsystem. Say,
- should the buildsystem run update-mime-database?
- should the buildsystem bytecompile installed python modules?
- should the buildsystem install a Python part of the package if required 
python dependency was not found?
- what to do with bundled libraries (evil for packagers, convenient for 
users with old system libs)?


The answer highly depends on who builds the package:
- a packager (or distro buildfarm);
- a developer;
- a user who just want to run git version;

Currently I see various hacks like "test if ENV{DESTDIR} is empty during 
install phase" etc. What do you think about introducing a standard 
(recommended?) cache variable for this type of information? Sure, every 
developer can just
set(YOUR_ROLE Developer CACHE STRING "Who are you?")
set_properties(CACHE YOUR_ROLE PROPERTY STRINGS 
"Developer;Packager;Maintainer;User")
but in this case a common name will help users (at least, once buildsystems 
will start really use this variable).
-- 
Yury G. Kudryashov,
mailto: urkud at mccme.ru