PROPOSAL: Use Cmake as the build system for Samba

[Andreas Schneider]

On Wednesday 17 February 2010 21:55:39 Kai Blin wrote:
> > == Discussion ==
> > 
> > IMPORTANT: Please make sure to read the wiki page, before commenting. We
> > tried to capture a number of concerns people may have regarding Cmake
> > there and we tried to provide answers. Of course if the page does not
> > address your concern we would like to hear about that so we can address
> > them.
> 
> The one thing that throws me off is that from the wiki page it seems like
> some things are generated using ruby?

I have written a script (in ruby) to make my life easier for a thing I do 
often for different projects. There is no ruby requirement and you don't have 
to use it.

I've removed it from the page as it isn't required and it looks like it 
confuses people.

> So the plan is to ditch the build
> system we currently have that probably only jelmer and metze understand
> enough to fix the esoteric problems for one that only Andreas understands
> enough to fix the esoteric problems.

What are you talking about here? CMake is a widely used build system. Several 
big projects use it and is has been designed to fix the problems of current 
build systems like building a parser, generate source code with the parser and 
then compile it (yacc, moc, pidl). The nice thing is that CMake automatically 
resolves the dependencies. Yes, this is working see KDE (qt moc).

> That looks like it's changing the
> bussing factor in the wrong direction. Also, the examples on the wiki page
> seem to be covering the simple cases. What I'd like to see would be a good
> way to do things like..

Well, this is about considering CMake as a build system.

> make test TESTS=<regex>
> make testenv

This should work and be doable. At this early stage (just having some 
prototype to start a discussion) we can't provide a full build and test 
environment for Samba.

> That's the custom parts of the build system that create the added value for
> me, the rest would be doable with plain autoconf with hardly any magic at
> all. As I said, the S3 buildsystem, which doesn't provide many of the fancy
> features the S4 build system has, is rather straightforward.

There are no plans to remove any features of the test infrastructure. The plan 
is to make things simpler and create a better experience.


	-- andreas