I declare that I have never worked with the autoconf tool.
Now I'm migrating a small project from autoconf to cmake, and I ran into the AC_SYS_LARGEFILE. I have not understood much about AC_SYS_LARGEFILE except that it is a kind of check to understand if for example off_t is 4 or 8 bytes.
Out of curiosity, I would like to understand which are the typical use cases of AC_SYS_LARGEFILE.
Coming to the real question, do I still need AC_SYS_LARGEFILE for CMake?
If yes, does a mechanism already exist in CMake or should I implement it myself?
You are almost correct. The AC_SYS_LARGEFILE autoconf macro enables large-file support (8-byte file offsets) for the program. With some compilers, additional compiler definitions must also be defined to work with large files.
As far as I know, there is not currently any support for this native to CMake. However, there are some CMake projects that have created their own solutions; see these files in the WireShark and the OpenJPEG repositories. The code in each of these appears to be adapted from the Gromacs Project.
For completeness, here is the WireShark CMake file, showing how to test the need for large file support in your program:
# This code was copied from http://www.gromacs.org/
# and its toplevel COPYING file starts with:
#
# GROMACS is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License
# (GPL) Version 2.
# - Define macro to check large file support
#
# GMX_TEST_LARGE_FILES(VARIABLE)
#
# VARIABLE will be set to true if 64-bit file support is available.
# This macro will also set defines as necessary to enable large file
# support, for instance:
# _LARGE_FILES
# _LARGEFILE_SOURCE
# _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
#
# However, it is YOUR job to make sure these defines are set in a cmakedefine so they
# end up in a config.h file that is included in your source if necessary!
MACRO(GMX_TEST_LARGE_FILES VARIABLE)
IF(NOT DEFINED ${VARIABLE})
if(CMAKE_C_COMPILER_ID MATCHES "MSVC")
#
# This is Visual Studio; Visual Studio has supported
# _fseeki64 and _ftelli64 since Visual Studio 2005 / MSVCR80,
# and we require newer versions, so we know we have them.
#
MESSAGE(STATUS "_fseeki64 and _ftelli64 are present")
else(CMAKE_C_COMPILER_ID MATCHES "MSVC")
#
# This is UN*X, or some other Windows compiler.
#
# For UN*X, we do the Large File Support tests, to see
# whether it's present and, if so what we need to define
# to enable it.
#
# XXX - what's the right thing to do on Windows with,
# for example, MinGW?
#
# On most platforms it is probably overkill to first test
# the flags for 64-bit off_t, and then separately fseeko.
# However, in the future we might have 128-bit seek offsets
# to support 128-bit filesystems that allow 128-bit offsets
# (ZFS), so it might be dangerous to indiscriminately set
# e.g. _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64.
#
MESSAGE(STATUS "Checking for 64-bit off_t")
# First check without any special flags
TRY_COMPILE(FILE64_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/TestFileOffsetBits.c")
if(FILE64_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "64-bit off_t is present with no special flags")
endif(FILE64_OK)
if(NOT FILE64_OK)
# Test with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
TRY_COMPILE(FILE64_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/TestFileOffsetBits.c"
COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64" )
if(FILE64_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "64-bit off_t is present with _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64")
set(_FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64 CACHE INTERNAL "64-bit off_t requires _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64")
endif(FILE64_OK)
endif(NOT FILE64_OK)
if(NOT FILE64_OK)
# Test with _LARGE_FILES
TRY_COMPILE(FILE64_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/TestFileOffsetBits.c"
COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "-D_LARGE_FILES" )
if(FILE64_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "64-bit off_t is present with _LARGE_FILES")
set(_LARGE_FILES 1 CACHE INTERNAL "64-bit off_t requires _LARGE_FILES")
endif(FILE64_OK)
endif(NOT FILE64_OK)
if(NOT FILE64_OK)
# Test with _LARGEFILE_SOURCE
TRY_COMPILE(FILE64_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/TestFileOffsetBits.c"
COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "-D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE" )
if(FILE64_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "64-bit off_t is present with _LARGEFILE_SOURCE")
set(_LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1 CACHE INTERNAL "64-bit off_t requires _LARGEFILE_SOURCE")
endif(FILE64_OK)
endif(NOT FILE64_OK)
if(NOT FILE64_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "64-bit file offset support not available")
else(NOT FILE64_OK)
# Set the flags we might have determined to be required above
configure_file("${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/TestLargeFiles.c.cmakein"
"${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}${CMAKE_FILES_DIRECTORY}/TestLargeFiles.c")
#
# If this is Windows, assume we have _fseeki64/_ftelli64
# available. If this is UN*X, check for fseeko/ftello.
#
if(NOT WIN32)
MESSAGE(STATUS "Checking for fseeko/ftello")
# Test if ftello/fseeko are available
TRY_COMPILE(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}${CMAKE_FILES_DIRECTORY}/TestLargeFiles.c")
if(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "Checking for fseeko/ftello - present")
endif(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
if(NOT FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
# glibc 2.2 neds _LARGEFILE_SOURCE for fseeko (but not 64-bit off_t...)
TRY_COMPILE(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
"${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}${CMAKE_FILES_DIRECTORY}/TestLargeFiles.c"
COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "-D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE" )
if(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "Checking for fseeko/ftello - present with _LARGEFILE_SOURCE")
set(_LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1 CACHE INTERNAL "64-bit fseeko requires _LARGEFILE_SOURCE")
endif(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
endif(NOT FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
if(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
SET(${VARIABLE} 1 CACHE INTERNAL "Result of test for large file support" FORCE)
set(HAVE_FSEEKO 1 CACHE INTERNAL "64-bit fseeko is available" FORCE)
else(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
MESSAGE(STATUS "Checking for fseeko/ftello - not found")
SET(${VARIABLE} 0 CACHE INTERNAL "Result of test for large file support" FORCE)
endif(FSEEKO_COMPILE_OK)
endif(NOT WIN32)
endif(NOT FILE64_OK)
endif(CMAKE_C_COMPILER_ID MATCHES "MSVC")
ENDIF(NOT DEFINED ${VARIABLE})
ENDMACRO(GMX_TEST_LARGE_FILES VARIABLE)