man page generation/packaging/installation with cmake

Question

I am looking for some good examples / tutorials on how to generate, package, and install man pages in projects using CMake.

Joachim W · Answer 1 · 2014-04-14T08:11:22.563

7

With cmake 2.8.12 under Linux, the following works for me:

ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(man ALL)

ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND(
  TARGET man
  SOURCE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/myprog.pod
  COMMAND pod2man ARGS -s 1 -c "myprog manual" ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/myprog.pod ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/myprog.1
  OUTPUTS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/myprog.1
)

ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND(
  TARGET man
  SOURCE man
  DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/myprog.1
)

INSTALL(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/myprog.1 DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/man/man1)

Which looks unelegant even by CMake standards. I would like to see a solution with less stammering.

edited Apr 14 '14 at 08:11

answered Apr 11 '14 at 16:10

Joachim W

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4

I realise this answer is +1yr old, but because it pops on Google search results, I feel compelled to share that this method issues warnings on CMake >=3.2.2 due to policy CMP0050. The CMake mailing list suggests a way to do what the asker wants: http://www.cmake.org/pipermail/cmake/2010-September/039781.html – silverclaw Jun 22 '15 at 14:07

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '21 at 12:22

Maybe you would be interested in the following solution, which allows to generate and install man pages, written in Markdown or AsciiDoc:

https://github.com/rnpgp/cmake-modules/

To generate and install man page, written in Markdown, it would be as easy as add two lines to your CMakeLists.txt:

include(PandocMan)
add_pandoc_man("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/utility.1.md")

The same with AsciiDoc and AsciiDoctor:

include(AdocMan)
add_adoc_man("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/utility.1.adoc")

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '11 at 02:51

You can delve into the source tree of CMake itself to see how it installs its own man pages.

It is sure to be a combination of:

using CMake's add_custom_command
calling tools to produce/generate documentation in those custom commands
installing the results in the correct location

See the documentation for CMake's add_custom_command and install commands for more information:

man page generation/packaging/installation with cmake

3 Answers3