Is there a build system for C++ which can manage release dependencies?

A little background, we have a fairly large code base, which builds in to a set of libraries - which are then distributed for internal use in various binaries. At the moment, the build process for this is haphazard and everything is built off the trunk.

We would like to explore whether there is a build system which will allow us to manage releases and automatically pull in dependencies. Such a tool exists for java, Maven. I like it's package, repository and dependency mechanism, and I know that with either the maven-native or maven-nar plugin we could get this. However the problem is that we cannot fix the source trees to the "maven way" - and unfortunate开发者_Go百科ly (at least the maven-nar) plugins don't seem to like code that is not structured this way...

So my question is, is there a tool which satisfies the following for C++

1. build
2. package (for example libraries with all headers, something like the .nar)
3. upload package to a "repository"
4. automatically pull in the required dependencies from said repository, extract headers and include in build, extract libraries and link. The depedencies would be described in the "release" for that binary - so if we were to use CI server to build that "release", the build script has the necessary dependencies listed (like the pom.xml files).

I could roll my own by modifying either make+shell scripts or waf/scons with extra python modules for the packaging and dependency management - however I would have thought that this is a common problem and someone somewhere has a tool for this? Or does everyone roll their own? Or have I missed a significant feature of waf/scons or CMake?

EDIT: I should add, OS is preferred, and non-MS...

Most of the linux distributions, for example, contain dependency tracking for their packages. Of all the things that I've tried to cobble together myself to take on your problem, in the end they all are "not quite perfect". The best thing to do, IMHO, is to create a local yum/deb repository or something (continuing my linux example) and then pull stuff from there as needed.

Many of the source-packages also quickly tell you the minimum components that must be installed to do a self-build (as opposed to installing a binary pre-compiled package).

Unfortunately, these methods are that much easier, though it's better than trying to do it yourself. In the end, to be cross-platform supporting, you need one of these systems per OS as well. Fun!

I am not sure if I understand correctly what you want to du, but I will tell you what we use and hope it helps.

We use cmake for our build. It hat to be noted that cmake is quite powerful. Among other things, you can "make install" in custom directories to collect headers and binaries there to build your release. We combine this with some python scripting to build our releases. YMMV, but some things might just be too specific for a generic tool and a custom script may be the simpler solution.

Our build tool builds releases directly from a svn reposity (checkout, build, ...) which I can really recommend to avoid some local state polluting the release in some unforseen way. It also enforces reproducability.

It depends a lot on the platforms you're targeting. I can only really speak for Linux, but there it also depends on the distributions you're targeting, packages being a distribution-level concept. To make things a bit simpler, there are families of distributions using similar packaging mechanisms and package names, meaning that the same recipe for making a Debian package will probably make an Ubuntu package too.

I'd definitely say that if you're willing to target a subset of all known Linux distros using a manageable set of packaging mechanisms, you will benefit in the long run from not rolling your own and building packages the way the distribution creators intended. These systems allow you to specify run- and build-time dependencies, and automatic CI environments also exist (like OBS for rpm-based distros).