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6228 :: Could Nim use Cmake to invoke the C compiler?

• Keithcat1 (orginal) [2020-04-18T00:12:15+02:00] view original

  I'm curious, would it be hard or beneficial to change the nim compiler so that every time you build a project, it generates a cmake_lists.txt file and uses Cmake to run the C or C++ compiler to compile the project. This seems to be at least one of the things that Cmake was made for. You might also be able to include other C code that's built by Cmake. I'm not really suggesting anything be changed, but am curious if it would be useful.

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• Araq (orginal) [2020-04-18T08:06:46+02:00] view original

  It could be useful for integrating Nim code into an existing C/C++ codebase that uses Cmake. However, Cmake can also simply run the Nim compiler before adding the produced C++ code to the makefile it produces.

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• mratsim (orginal) [2020-04-19T16:44:31+02:00] view original

  Or you can use Nim files as a build system:

  "Small" example with one-pass static compilation of all C files:

  • https://github.com/numforge/laser/blob/d1e6ae61/laser/cpuinfo.nim#L274-L353

  Original cmake was 800+ lines (to handle all combination of Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, x86, x86-64, ARM32, ARM64)

  • https://github.com/pytorch/cpuinfo/blob/d5e37adf/CMakeLists.txt

  Complex example in 2 passes which builds the C++ DLL via Nim:

  • https://github.com/numforge/agent-smith/blob/a2d9251e/third_party/ale_build.nim#L40-L83

  and then wrap it:

  • https://github.com/numforge/agent-smith/blob/a2d9251e/third_party/ale_wrap.nim#L24-L39

  Original CMake was 250+ lines

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