Working with the CMake build system

The GNU make system is a great tool when you build exclusively for Linux systems. However, some packages are multiplatform and need a way to manage Makefile files on different operating systems. CMake is a cross-platform build system that can work not only with GNU make, but also Microsoft Visual Studio and Apple's Xcode.

Getting ready

The CMake tool parses the CMakeLists.txt files in every directory to control the build process. An example CMakeLists.txt file to compile the hello world example follows:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.10)
project(helloworld)
add_executable(helloworld helloworld.c)
install(TARGETS helloworld RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)

How to do it...

The Yocto build system also contains classes with the required knowledge to build CMake packages. All your recipe needs to do is to inherit the cmake class and configure the arguments to be passed to the configure script in the EXTRA_OECMAKE variable. Usually, the CMake system understands how to...