CMake

• Manages the build process in an operating system and in a compiler-independent manner
  1. Preprocessing
  2. Compiling (HL code → machine level (“object”) code)
  3. Linking (object code → executable)
• cmake DIR is a Makefile generator
  • A Makefile is generated in the CURRENT directory following instructions given by a CMakeLists file DIR/MakeLists.txt
• make to execute the created Makefile
• CMakeLists.txt files can reference other CMakeLists.txt files in sub-directories, so you are usually only interested by the CMakeLists.txt of the top directory

Makefile

• Idea: make process of compiling programs with many source code files easier
• Example: simple program w/ only a few src files can be compiled w/ g++
  • g++ main.cpp file1.cpp file2.cpp -o hello (compiles into binary hello)
  • For more source files this gets tedious