[CMake] coding style for modules

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2018-01-04 05:09+0300 Dave Milter wrote:

> Hello,
>
> If there is some libfoo that I want to use in my project,
> and this libfoo has it's own CMakeLists.txt I have 3 options to deal
> with such external dependency:
>
> a) Treat it like every other external dependency and write cmake code
>  like FindLibFoo.cmake to find libfoo on file system.
>
> b)Include this project as git submodule and use ExternalProject to
> invoke `cmake` and `cmake --build`
>
> c)Include this project as git submodule and use add_subdirectory(libfoo)

Or

  d) Use a config-file package approach (the preferred modern
  alternative to the find-file package approach used in (a)).  See
  <https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-packages.7.html>
  for details concerning config-file packages. Of course, this option
  assumes that external software's CMake-based build system has been
  developed to the point of creating a config-file package. However, if
  it has a CMake-based build system already that is just lacking such a
  package, it is straightforward to implement such a package (from my
  experience doing that for several different projects and also from
  the above URL).

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); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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