go_cmake

Let's say you're a CMake shop. Go on to assert that you'd like to use go for a project or two. Go has a very well thought out build system. Can it be made to play nice with CMake? Here's an attempt.

Instructions

In your top level CMakeLists.txt file, include GolangSimple.cmake:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
include(bld/cmake/GolangSimple.cmake)
add_subdirectory(some/subdirectory)

In some/subdirectory lies your go program. Let's say it's a simple clint to list out the keys in a redis store. It depends upon a go get provided module. Here's what you'd need in your subdirectory's CMakeLists.txt file:

GO_GET(go_redis github.com/hoisie/redis)
ADD_GO_INSTALLABLE_PROGRAM(redis_lister # executable name
                           redis_lister.go # `package main` source file
                           go_redis) # everything else is a dependency

This will create a binary called $CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR/some/subdirectory/redis_lister. When you build the install target it will put said binary in $PREFIX/bin/redis_lister.

If you want to set build flags, you can use the CMake variable CMAKE_GO_FLAGS. If you want to include modules local to redis_lister.go, include them in the "./module" style. Be sure to put your top level source file in the package main.

Under the hood

A directory ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/go is created and set as the $GOPATH environment variable in all go get and go build calls. All subprojects share a $GOPATH.

Cavaets

go get and go build are the only directives to the go command that are accounted for.

I've tested this on OS X 10.9 and Ubuntu 14.04. I haven't tried it on Windows, though I would be deeply surprised if it worked.