PointCloudLibrary / PointCloudLibrary/pcl

Modernize CMake module system

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#4,035 1 comment 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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kind: todo module: cmake skill: cmake
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Current CMake module system of PCL does only show in summary, when a module is not build because of a dependency is missing, even it was set as ON.

Instead of this we could to it like VTK 9: Instead of a simple checkbox (ON, OFF), they have a enum with more states (e.g. ON, OFF, DEFAULT).

As this would make it easier to make sure every required component is compiled, I suggest to switch to a similar schema.

Example: Your have a job to automatically build the PCL - and this works fine. After updating an dependency, e.g. CUDA, you don't see the job doesn't build anymore the GPU module. Currently this build still will be started and a broken build will be deployed (as the GPU module is missing, which is required by another job). When you could define a module as required, CMake could throw an error and the job would detect this error.

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing PCL's current CMake module summary behavior and compare it with the linked VTK 9 module-state design. Determine how states such as ON, OFF, and DEFAULT should represent missing dependencies, and how a required module should fail configuration. Done means the design is agreed and required components cannot silently disappear from a successful build.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cmake, cpp
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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