[cmake-developers] CMAKE Generator for Embacardero RAD Studio IDE

[Brad King]

On 11/18/2017 03:08 AM, Tobias Hunger wrote:
>> I'm not familiar with that IDE, but in order to be directly supported
>> by a generator its native build system would need to support everything
>> in CMake's code model (static/shared/exe binaries, custom commands, etc.).
> 
> This is only necessary if that IDE has a built-in build system like Visual
> Studio has. If the IDE uses other build systems in the background, then this
> seems like overkill to me.

Yes.  @llvm.999 when one uses that IDE to create a project by hand, and
clicks "Build", how is the compiler then invoked?

> Extra generators are a horrible hack IMHO and we should strive to get rid
> of them and not encourage users to add more.

I don't like them either, and they are a horrible way to do integration
when the upstream IDE is interested in supporting CMake.  The IDE should
talk to cmake's server mode.  Extra generators were created as a way to
support IDEs before IDEs supported CMake (i.e. ecosystem bootstrapping).

> I would suggest to write some python script using CMake server-mode to
> extract data out of CMake and then generate files in whatever syntax
> this IDE requires.

That would be a good approach that doesn't require changes to the IDE
or to CMake.  It essentially implements an extra generator externally.
The actual build system would still need to use one of the existing
generators, such as "Borland Makefiles".

-Brad