CMake/Help/variable/CMAKE_HOST_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR.rst

CMAKE_HOST_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR
---------------------------

The name of the CPU CMake is running on.

Windows Platforms
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On Windows, this variable is set to the value of the environment variable
``PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE``.

Unix Platforms
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On systems that support ``uname``, this variable is set to the output of:

- ``uname -m`` on GNU, Linux, Cygwin, Android, or
- ``arch`` on OpenBSD, or
- on other systems,

  * ``uname -p`` if its exit code is nonzero, or
  * ``uname -m`` otherwise.

macOS Platforms
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The value of ``uname -m`` is used by default.

On Apple Silicon hosts, the architecture printed by ``uname -m`` may vary
based on CMake's own architecture and that of the invoking process tree.

.. versionadded:: 3.19.2

  On Apple Silicon hosts:

  * The :variable:`CMAKE_APPLE_SILICON_PROCESSOR` variable or
    the :envvar:`CMAKE_APPLE_SILICON_PROCESSOR` environment variable
    may be set to specify the host architecture explicitly.

  * If :variable:`CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES` is not set, CMake adds explicit
    flags to tell the compiler to build for the host architecture so the
    toolchain does not have to guess based on the process tree's architecture.