+ IDE Integration Guide¶
+ +Introduction¶
+Integrated development environments (IDEs) may want to integrate with CMake to +improve the development experience for CMake users. This document lays out the +recommended best practices for such integration.
+Bundling¶
+Many IDE vendors will want to bundle a copy of CMake with their IDE. IDEs that +bundle CMake should present the user with the option of using an external CMake +installation instead of the bundled one, in case the bundled copy becomes +outdated and the user wants to use a newer version.
+While IDE vendors may be tempted to bundle different versions of CMake with +their application, such practice is not recommended. CMake has strong +guarantees of backwards compatibility, and there is no reason not to use a +newer version of CMake than what a project requires, or indeed, the very latest +version. Therefore, it is recommended that IDE vendors that bundle CMake with +their application always include the very latest patch version of CMake +available at the time of release.
+As a suggestion, IDEs may also ship a copy of the Ninja buildsystem alongside +CMake. Ninja is highly performant and well-supported on all platforms that +support CMake. IDEs that bundle Ninja should use Ninja 1.10 or later, which +contains features needed to support Fortran builds.
+Presets¶
+CMake supports a file format called CMakePresets.json, and its
+user-specific counterpart, CMakeUserPresets.json. This file contains
+information on the various configure presets that a user may want. Each preset
+may have a different compiler, build flags, etc. The details of this format are
+explained in the cmake(1) manual.
IDE vendors are encouraged to read and evaluate this file the same way CMake
+does, and present the user with the presets listed in the file. Users should be
+able to see (and possibly edit) the CMake cache variables, environment
+variables, and command line options that are defined for a given preset. The
+IDE should then construct the list of appropriate cmake(1) command
+line arguments based on these settings, rather than using the
+--preset= option directly. The
+--preset= option is intended only as a convenient
+frontend for command line users, and should not be used by the IDE.
For example, if a preset named ninja specifies Ninja as the generator
+and ${sourceDir}/build as the build directory, instead of running:
cmake -S /path/to/source --preset=ninja
+the IDE should instead calculate the settings of the ninja preset, and then
+run:
cmake -S /path/to/source -B /path/to/source/build -G Ninja
+In cases where a preset contains lots of cache variables, and passing all of
+them as -D flags would cause the command line length limit
+of the platform to be exceeded, the IDE should instead construct a temporary
+cache script and pass it with the -C flag.
While reading, parsing, and evaluating the contents of CMakePresets.json is
+straightforward, it is not trivial. In addition to the documentation, IDE
+vendors may also wish to refer to the CMake source code and test cases for a
+better understanding of how to implement the format.
+This file provides a
+machine-readable JSON schema for the CMakePresets.json format that IDE
+vendors may find useful for validation and providing editing assistance.
Configuring¶
+IDEs that invoke cmake(1) to run the configure step may wish to
+receive information about the artifacts that the build will produce, as well
+as the include directories, compile definitions, etc. used to build the
+artifacts. Such information can be obtained by using the
+File API. The manual page for the File API
+contains more information about the API and how to invoke it.
+Server mode was removed as of CMake 3.20 and
+should not be used on CMake 3.14 or later.
IDEs should avoid creating more build trees than necessary, and only create
+multiple build trees if the user wishes to switch to a different compiler,
+use different compile flags, etc. In particular, IDEs should NOT create
+multiple single-config build trees which all have the same properties except
+for a differing CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE, effectively creating a
+multi-config environment. Instead, the Ninja Multi-Config
+generator, in conjunction with the File API to
+get the list of build configurations, should be used for this purpose.
IDEs should not use the "extra generators" with Makefile or Ninja generators,
+which generate IDE project files in addition to the Makefile or Ninja files.
+Instead the File API should be used to get the
+list of build artifacts.
Building¶
+If a Makefile or Ninja generator is used to generate the build tree, it is not
+recommended to invoke make or ninja directly. Instead, it is
+recommended that the IDE invoke cmake(1) with the
+--build argument, which will in turn invoke the
+appropriate build tool.
If an IDE project generator is used, such as Xcode or one of the
+Visual Studio generators, and the IDE understands the project format used, the
+IDE should read the project file and build it the same way it would otherwise.
The File API can be used to obtain a list of
+build configurations from the build tree, and the IDE should present this list
+to the user to select a build configuration.
Testing¶
+ctest(1) supports outputting a JSON format with information about the
+available tests and test configurations. IDEs which want to run CTest should
+obtain this information and use it to present the user with a list of tests.
IDEs should not invoke the test target of the generated buildsystem.
+Instead, they should invoke ctest(1) directly.
IDEs with CMake integration¶
+The following IDEs support CMake natively:
+ +Additionally, CMake has builtin support for some IDEs:
+-
+
IDE Build Tool Generators: +Generate IDE native build systems such as Visual Studio or Xcode.
+Extra Generators: +Extend Command-Line Build Tool Generators to generate IDE +project files that hook into the command-line build system. +Superseded by the
File API.
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