CMake: how do you copy private frameworks to an application package under OS X?

Question

We create several private frameworks that are copied to our application package during the Xcode build process. I am moving the entire build process to CMake, and this is one area that I could not solve.

I found one utility module: CMakeIngestOSXBundleLibraries.cmake, but its a little unclear how it can be used, or if it does what we want. I would like it to start every time the application is created immediately after it is connected. It makes me think that I should do something like

IF (APPLE) add_custom_command( TargetName POST_BUILD CMakeIngestOSXBundleLibraries.cmake ) ENDIF (APPLE) 

but I don’t think it is right. Does anyone have any experience?

Answer 1

That's what I'm doing:

1) In my CMakeLists.txt file, I have the following:

 IF (APPLE) SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES( MyFramework PROPERTIES FRAMEWORK true) SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES( MyFramework PROPERTIES XCODE_ATTRIBUTE_INSTALL_PATH @executable_path/../Frameworks/ ) ENDIF (APPLE) 

The second line of "set_target_properties" sets up the structure for always searching in the application set in the Frameworks subfolder.

2) In my top-level CMakeLists.txt file, I add the unified binary setting to the output directory:

 SET (CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/Bin) SET (CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/Bin ) SET (CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/Bin ) 

3) Then in my application file “CMakeLists.txt” I have the following:

 IF (APPLE) ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND( TARGET MyApp POST_BUILD COMMAND ${PYTHON_EXECUTABLE} ARGS ${CMAKE_HOME_DIRECTORY}/CopyFramework.py --binary ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/Bin --framework MyFramework.framework --app MyApp.app ) ENDIF (APPLE) 

This calls my python script, which builds the src and dest path, and actually copies the Framework.

The final trick is that since this is only a Mac, I can rely on the Xcode environment variable in a Python script:

  config= os.environ["CONFIGURATION"] 

This allows me to compile the full path to the actual binary location of the framework and the application.

The only thing I wish for was that there was a CMake variable that went to the current Configuration in the context of ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND ... It would be nice not to resort to using Xcode.