CMake in a nutshell

CMake is open source and available on many platforms. It is also compiler-independent, making it a very strong tool when it comes to building and distributing cross-platform software. All these features make it a valuable tool for building software in a modern way – that is, by relying heavily on build automation and built-in quality gates.

CMake consists of three command-line tools:

• cmake: CMake itself, which is used to generate build instructions
• ctest: CMake’s test utility, which is used to detect and run tests
• cpack: CMake’s packaging tool, which is used to pack software into convenient installers, such as DEB, RPM, and self-extracting installers

There are also two interactive tools:

• cmake-gui: A GUI frontend to help with configuring projects
• ccmake: An interactive terminal UI for configuring CMake

The cmake-gui tool can be used to conveniently configure a CMake build and select the compiler to...