Build system

From Freehackers

Contents 1 Criteria 2 Contenders 2.1 CMake 2.2 Scons 2.3 Waf 2.4 premake 2.5 autoconf/autotools

[edit] Criteria

• Ease of use
• Documentation
• Performance
• Windows/unix support
• Support for cross-compilation

[edit] Contenders

[edit] CMake

• Used by KDE for compilation
• Documentation is not very good, but the mailing list is very reactive for questions.
• Generation of makefiles, or Visual Studio projects
• Lack support for cross-compilation
• Written in c.
• Works very well
• Language for specifying the rule is a bit simplistic and underdocumented

[edit] Scons

• Written in python.
• Perf issues on big project (was the main problem when kde tested it)
• It is a replacement of make itself, it won't generate any project file but is used directly to build the project. It can be integrated into Visual Studio as a custom build rule.
• language for writing rules : python

[edit] Waf

• waf is initially a fork of scons but has now gone its own life
• 100kb Python script, no installation needed
• Projects using waf: XMMS2, ...
• language for writing rules : python, or xml
• waf is a build tool itself, it does not generate projects for external build tools
• windows support ?
• cross compilation ?

[edit] premake

• build project generator
• support for makefiles, Visual Studio (all versions), SharpBuilder, MonoDevelop
• Written in C, code is quite small
• rules written in lua

[edit] autoconf/autotools

• arf :-)
• use obfuscated M4 language, lot of files, a nightmare to maintain.
• historically the only one, hence still used on lot of projects