An extensible cross-platform build system inspired by CMake and written in Lua
require 'lmake'
myPlugin = native.sharedlib {
input = file.glob('myPlugin/*.cpp'),
language = 'cpp',
compiler = switch(system.platform, {
windows = native.compilers.winsdk,
linux = native.compilers.llvm,
osx = native.compilers.xcode
},
arch = multi { 'x86', 'x86_64' }
}
(aka: What's wrong with CMake?)
CMake is a great system, but it suffers from a number of issues stemming from its initial design choices. Here's how LMake will attempt to solve them.
- LMake is a build system
While LMake could be used to generate build files for GNU make, MSBuild, or others, its primary use case is to build project directly by specifying a compiler such as GCC, clang or MSVC. With the lack of a specific 'confugration' step, the rules for accessing and modifying different target properties can be simplified.
- LMake projects can seamlessly integrate with any language
Adding a target type for your favourite language is almost as simple as defining a target instance. The LMake framework includes (TODO) built-in support for C/C++, C#, Lua, Python, and all the GCC supported languages.
- LMake runs on Lua 5.3
Targets will usually be defined in a simple, declarative style, but LMake embraces that build processes can be complicated and allows the use of any Lua construct or library. Think of LMake as a framework on top of Lua rather than its own programming language.
- LMake puts deployment first
LMake targets know about all their runtime dependent files, making deployment on any platform a
cinch. Just call target.deploy(myLibrary, "directory") (TODO).
- LMake is truly platform-independent
All LMake needs is a filesystem, a shell, and a Lua binary. Any platform-specific functionality, path operations mainly, is defined separately making future extensions straightforward. Support for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows is included.
- LMake projects define more than just build steps
A target can have any number of 'actions'. Need a special command sequence to start your project?
Just embed it in your target definition, and run lmake run myTarget. Test results from all targets
are combined together in a single XML output, to be used by your CI system of choice or
pretty-printed to the console (TODO).
The basic LMake element is the 'target', which is nothing more than an object created by calling
target and passing in a table of definitions. These definitions consist of 'properties' and
'actions'. Actions are top-level functions called by the command interpreter like 'build' and
'test', whereas properties are general-purpose mutable or immutable variables, such as 'input',
'language' or 'linkage'.