what is CMake(available at cmake.org) .

Question

Remmeber in my case it is required to compile geant4 toolkit (written in C++ using oop) on visual studio and I dont know a single thing about cmake and its working. help me if you know something about cmake

Answer 1

CMake is a build system used to build (compile+link) executables from the console/command line, although it can be used for other (command-line processing) things as well.

So it is in fact 'a kind of' macro language somewhat similar (but much more powerful) than batch file programming (or shell programming).

In short, you need something like CMake to build your apps if you are going to use some basic editor (such as Notepad) instead of a proper IDE as your source code editor! In my experience Make and similar clones are more common in the embedded development world than in PC-based development world.

You refer to Visual Studio: VS projects built from inside the IDE does not use typically use MS's version of Make to build apps, but has it's own project format (*.sln, *.vcxproj, etc). But VS does support its own version of Make - called 'nmake' to build apps from outside the IDE.

AFAICS nmake is similar to CMake at least in intent/operation, so you *should be* able to translate the actual 'make file' to nmake format, and invoke it using nmake.

Answer 2

first of all you are great because you know something about it but sorry to say I am unable to learn a single thing from you(afcourse it is my fault) dua to lack of my technical knowledge what I already know is just codding in c# especialy in eqution solving and graphing.kindly sugest some sources/links to me were i can read basic things about cmake and other reletated stuff and at last sorry for bad english.

Answer 3

@Muhammad, I am sorry if you did not find the answer useful, but I can only answer about Make files in the general sense - I do not know enough about your particular issue(s) to be able to give specific advice.

Besides, I do not know anything about the geant4 framework (but I have quickly checked their website now). Anyway, I would recommend you use their forum (http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/HyperNews/geant4/cindex) to post on any issues you encounter. I suspect there will be very few people on SoloLearn with experience on this framework, so I don't think you will get much help here.

Regarding installation issues, http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/HyperNews/geant4/get/installconfig.html seems to be the place to go!

For a high-level comparison between 'vanilla' Make and CMake, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25789644/difference-between-using-makefile-and-cmake-to-compile-the-code

According to this comparison (I was not aware of this) CMake can be used to generate solutions for different platforms, including VS.

Good luck!