Introduction

In this chapter, we will learn how to perform custom operations at configure time and build time. Let us briefly recall the notion of times as related to the workflow of a project managed by CMake:

1. CMake time or configure time: This is when CMake is running and processing the CMakeLists.txt files in your project.
2. Generation time: This is when the files for the native build tool, such as Makefiles or Visual Studio project files, are generated.
3. Build time: This is when the native build tools are invoked on the platform- and tool-native build scripts previously generated by CMake. At this point, the compiler will be invoked and the targets (executables and libraries) will be built in a specific build directory.

4. CTest time or test time: When we run the test suite to check whether the targets perform as intended.
5. CDash time or report time: When the results of testing...