With cmake, how would you disable in-source builds

Question

I want to disallow people from cluttering our source tree with generated CMake files... and, more importantly, disallow them from stepping on existing Makefiles that are not part of the same build process we're using CMake for. (best not to ask)

The way I have come up with to do this is to have a few lines at the top of my CMakeLists.txt, as follows:

if("${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}" STREQUAL "${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}")
   message(SEND_ERROR "In-source builds are not allowed.")
endif("${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}" STREQUAL "${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}")

However, doing it this way seems too verbose. Additionally, if I try an in-source build it still creates the the CMakeFiles/ directory, and the CMakeCache.txt file in the source tree before the error is thrown.

Am I missing a better way to do this?

Answer 1

CMake has two undocumented options: CMAKE_DISABLE_SOURCE_CHANGES and CMAKE_DISABLE_IN_SOURCE_BUILD

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 2.8)

# add this options before PROJECT keyword
set(CMAKE_DISABLE_SOURCE_CHANGES ON)
set(CMAKE_DISABLE_IN_SOURCE_BUILD ON)

project (HELLO)

add_executable (hello hello.cxx)

-

andrew@manchester:~/src% cmake .
CMake Error at /usr/local/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/CMakeDetermineSystem.cmake:160 (FILE):
  file attempted to write a file: /home/andrew/src/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log
  into a source directory.

/home/selivanov/cmake-2.8.8/Source/cmMakefile.cxx

bool cmMakefile::CanIWriteThisFile(const char* fileName)
{
  if ( !this->IsOn("CMAKE_DISABLE_SOURCE_CHANGES") )
    {
    return true;
    }
  // If we are doing an in-source build, than the test will always fail
  if ( cmSystemTools::SameFile(this->GetHomeDirectory(),
                               this->GetHomeOutputDirectory()) )
    {
    if ( this->IsOn("CMAKE_DISABLE_IN_SOURCE_BUILD") )
      {
      return false;
      }
    return true;
    }

  // Check if this is subdirectory of the source tree but not a
  // subdirectory of a build tree
  if ( cmSystemTools::IsSubDirectory(fileName,
      this->GetHomeDirectory()) &&
    !cmSystemTools::IsSubDirectory(fileName,
      this->GetHomeOutputDirectory()) )
    {
    return false;
    }
  return true;
}