[CMake] The CMake build system for PLplot is now essentially complete

[David Cole]

You guys should add yourselves to the list of projects using CMake on 
the CMake Wiki:
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Projects

Thanks for sharing your story here...


- David


Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> I am happy to report that the PLplot developers have essentially 
> completed
> their new CMake Build System (CBS), and everybody who has tried it 
> likes it
> very much compared to our old Autotools Build System (ABS).  Just like 
> the
> article about the KDE switch to CMake promised, the CMake syntax is 
> easy for
> our developers to understand and maintain, the results are fast, and 
> unlike
> our ABS we can use our CBS to build PLplot on windows.
>
> The current status is we are building the complete PLplot on Linux 
> with our
> CBS.  That consists of a core C library, many plugins for various plot
> devices that are dynamically loaded by that core library, many language
> interfaces (some of them swig generated) to the core C library, many
> examples to be used for ctest results, and a complete docbook-based 
> document
> build.  Our success on other platforms such as Mac OS X and windows is 
> more
> limited than for Linux, but it is early days yet, and I think it is 
> only a
> matter of time until we figure out how to refine our CBS so that we can
> also build full-featured PLplot on those platforms.
>
> Earlier today I complained a bit about the lack of "elseif" in CMake, 
> and a
> default write to the source tree with FILE(WRITE...).  Also, there are 
> well-known CMake troubles with fortran support (we have both fortran 
> 77 and
> fortran 95 interfaces to the core C library) that I would like to see
> straightened out so we don't have to do some ridiculous fortran 
> workarounds
> I have mentioned before on list and in bug reports.
>
> However, I would like to emphasize that despite those problems, CMake has
> been an extremely positive experience for the PLplot developers, and I 
> would
> like to publicly thank the CMake developers for all their hard work at
> making such a nice build system publicly available.  Also, I would 
> like to
> thank those that have patiently answered all my CMake questions on this
> list.  You guys have been a great help, and we have a pretty nice CMake
> build system for PLplot as a result that does everything that we need
> on Linux and should soon do the same on Mac OS X and windows as well.
>
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
>
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and 
> Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state 
> implementation
> for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting 
> software
> package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
> Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure 
> Project
> (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
>
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________
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