[CMake] Bootstrapping a compiler with cmake - ideas?

[Christoph Höger]

Hi all,

we are working on a port of our old, handcrafted build system for OPAL
(http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~opal/opal-language.html) to cmake.

The Opal compiler produces C-Code, so in theory bootstrapping that beast
on any machine should be easy as long as the C-code is shipped in a
distribution tarball (make will detect it is already present and not run
the non-existing compiler). After deflating that distribution tarball,
we re-invoke a configure script on the build tree (to get host
characteristics like integer sizes) and then simply make it.

When switching to cmake we would not have a configure script and the
c-sources would live in the build directory. So how can we create such a
distribution tarball? Is there anything in the cmake universe that could
help us, or do we have to write a cmake script for that task?

best regards,

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Höger

Technische Universität Berlin
Fakultät IV - Elektrotechnik und Informatik
Übersetzerbau und Programmiersprachen

Sekr. TEL12-2, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587 Berlin

Tel.: +49 (30) 314-24890
E-Mail: christoph.hoeger at tu-berlin.de