Can CMake generate build scripts which do *not* use cmake?

Question

Question: Can CMake generate build scripts that do not, in any way, use CMake? If not, how hard is it to gut a CMake generated automake script to not make any checks against CMake?

I am a big fan of CMake to the point where I am championing the idea that we transition to it in my current work environment. One thing that could ease this transition from our current build system to CMake would be if I could demonstrate that CMake can generate automake files that do not require cmake themselves.

Clearly, I would never want to do this for day to day use, but having the ability to easily create a branch of our code that can be built from source without requiring cmake would go a long way in helping me make my case.

Answer 1

The ability to do this depends on your OS, I'm presuming Unix/Makefile or Windows/MSVC. If you're using MSVC, the cmake dependency should be eliminated by declaring the CMAKE_SUPPRESS_REGENERATION option at the start of your cmake script.

SET(CMAKE_SUPPRESS_REGENERATION TRUE)

On Unix-based systems, however, the Makefiles are tied explicitly to the cmake build files (CMakeFiles, etc). I suspect that this dependency could be bypassed by the strategic commenting out of Makefile directives although, I cannot say what they might be.

Answer 2

No, CMake cannot do this. It doesn't really make sense, either, since without any CMake-support at build-time, there would be no way to check or update the makefiles/project-files themselves when the CMakeLists.txt files have changed.

If you are moving from Visual Studio to CMake, you may want to take a look at vcproj2cmake.