class Gem::Ext::CmakeBuilder

This builder creates extensions defined using CMake. Its is invoked if a Gem’s spec file sets the ‘extension` property to a string that contains `CMakeLists.txt`.

In general, CMake projects are built in two steps:

* configure
* build

The builder follow this convention. First it runs a configuration step and then it runs a build step.

CMake projects can be quite configurable - it is likely you will want to specify options when installing a gem. To pass options to CMake specify them after ‘–` in the gem install command. For example:

gem install <gem_name> -- --preset <preset_name>

Note that options are ONLY sent to the configure step - it is not currently possible to specify options for the build step. If this becomes and issue then the CMake builder can be updated to support build options.

Useful options to know are:

-G to specify a generator (-G Ninja is recommended)
-D<CMAKE_VARIABLE> to set a CMake variable (for example -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release)
--preset <preset_name> to use a preset

If the Gem author provides presets, via CMakePresets.json file, you will likely want to use one of them. If not, you may wish to specify a generator. Ninja is recommended because it can build projects in parallel and thus much faster than building them serially like Make does.