cmake-init-executable VS cmkr

Then you can pass this to the configure command using the --toolchain flag. If you keep the embedded specific details far far far away from your CMakeLists files, then you get an otherwise completely normal CMake project that supports building for the host platform as well. This comes with the benefit that you can write the business logic in a separate object library target, which tests can consume and run on the host. You can see that in action here: https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init-executable

You can take a look at an example workflow with CMake using presets here.

This example is similar to what you need in structure sans the executable at the top level.

Besides, a CMake project that focuses only on building something doesn't need more than a CML file. If you compare the baseline with a fully populated cmake folder (https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init-executable) and this one https://github.com/friendlyanon/generate-opaque-structs then you can see that you don't need anything from the baseline, but it's all very useful stuff that everyone should use.

You make the entrypoint as minimal as possible and develop the actual application logic basically as a library. This example - while being C++ - shows you how to do that. You can generate the exact same project with the tool linked in the README with the --c switch for a C project.

Ah, you mean flashing as in download. You can create a custom target for that, like in this example. Do note that the example allows complete customizability of the commands, because the developer environment isn't necessarily identical for everyone.

You create separate install components for them and then you can control how those components are packed using CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS.

Been using https://cmkr.build/ for a while now, its great and also declarative.

I would like to counter with a project I’ve been working on: https://cmkr.build. Unfortunately writing good CMake is extremely repetitive and there is definitely room for a generator that has sane defaults.

You are trying to use it the wrong way it seems, the point of CMakeLists.txt is that you only maintain that and nothing else. If you have changes in there then it will re-generate the project for you when it starts building. Adding files via IDE is not supported and is not really the point, there used to be a time where I primarily worked with VS solutions but the more I dove into the open source space the more it became clear that its the worst way of doing it. You just have to get used to a different workflow, the benefit is that your project can be in theory now compiled on all sorts of systems and not just with VS. If CMake is too much to handle perhaps give https://cmkr.build/ a try, it hides a lot of the CMake madness behind its toml specification, been using it for a while now, its great.

https://cmkr.build/ its pretty straight forward and been using it for some time now, can only highly recommend it.

Currently working on https://github.com/build-cpp/cmkr

I started working on https://github.com/build-cpp/cmkr to remedy this, but other similar solutions exist.

I invite you to take a look at https://github.com/build-cpp/cmkr, it makes this even easier ^

I’ve been working on cmkr, a modern build system based on CMake and TOML.

Definitely! I would recommend using cmake because it’s easy to generate a compile_commands.json. I’ve been working on https://build-cpp.github.io/cmkr to make the transition as smooth as possible.