In CMake script CMakeLists.txt, how to detect the current build target, like the parameter passed to cmake command via -A option? There is variable WIN32 to detect Windows, but still not the parameter for -A option, like -A X64.
if (WIN32)
#do something
endif (WIN32)
The platform name that is provided with the -A flag is accessible in the CMakeLists.txt file via the CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM variable.
Regarding your wording, let me note that there is no such thing like "current build target" in CMake. Rather, the CMakeLists.txt file defines, which targets will be available in the generated Makefile (e.g. via add_executable or add_library) that is created by CMake. CMake itself does not perform builds for specific targets. Which target gets build depends on how you execute the generated Makefile, e.g. make <targetname>.
Related
I have just acquired an arbitrary CMake project from the internet and I am not sure how to compile it. What commands do I need to run to build it from the command line?
Basic steps
If you're on a Unix-y operating system, like Linux or macOS, then you would run:
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -S /path/to/source-dir -B /path/to/build-dir
$ cmake --build /path/to/build-dir
Here, /path/to/source-dir is the directory containing the root-level CMakeLists.txt, this is most commonly the root of a source control repository. Meanwhile, /path/to/build-dir is a distinct directory (that does not need to exist yet) that CMake will use to store the generated build system and its outputs. This is called an out-of-tree build. You should never attempt an in-tree build with CMake because of the possibility of name clashes and difficulty involved with cleaning up the generated files.
When building with a single-config generator (like Make, which is the default on Unix), you specify the build type by setting the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE variable in the first command, known as the configure step. You must always set this variable when working with a single-config generator. The built-in configs are Debug, Release, RelWithDebInfo, and MinSizeRel. See this answer for more detail on this.
After the configure step, you may build the project by either calling the underlying build tool (in this case, make) or by calling CMake's generic build launcher command (cmake --build), as I do here.
If you're on Windows, then the default generator is Visual Studio, which is a multi-config generator. This means the build type is chosen during the build step rather than the configure step, and the commands must be adjusted accordingly:
$ cmake -S /path/to/source-dir -B /path/to/build-dir
$ cmake --build /path/to/build-dir --config Release
These steps assume that the CMake build you are looking at is well behaved. If a project fails to build with the above steps and you have all of its dependencies installed to system locations (and they are well behaved), then you should open an issue with the upstream project. The most common source of bad behavior in mature CMake builds is dependency handling. Too often you will have to read the build or its documentation to determine which variables need to be set (via -D, like we did with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE above) for the project to find its dependencies.
Advanced topics
Setting options and cache variables
Some projects offer options to enable/disable tests, components, features, etc. These are typically done by writing entries to the CMake cache during the configure step. For example, a common way to disable building tests is to set BUILD_TESTING to NO at the command line:
$ cmake -S /path/to/source-dir -B /path/to/binary-dir [...] -DBUILD_TESTING=NO
This particular variable is a convention, but is not guaranteed to be honored. Check the project's documentation to see which options are available.
Selecting a generator and toolchain
When using the Visual Studio generators specifically, you can tell CMake which platform you wish to target and which version of the compiler you would like to use. The full form of the CMake configure command for this is:
$ cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A <ARCH> -T<TOOLSET> [...]
Valid values of <ARCH> include Win32, x64, ARM, and ARM64. If <TOOLSET> is not specified, then the 32-bit MSVC compiler will be used. Typically, you will want this to be host=x64 to ensure that 64-bit MSVC is used, which can allocate more memory for large linking steps. You can also set <TOOLSET> to ClangCL to use the Visual Studio provided ClangCL tools.
On all generators, CMake sniffs the environment for which compiler to use. It checks the CC and CXX environment variables for the C and C++ compilers, respectively. If those are empty, it will look for cc and c++ executables in the PATH. You can manually override the compilers by setting the CMAKE_C_COMPILER and CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER CMake cache (not environment) variables at the CMake command line (using -D again).
Installing & using dependencies
Once a CMake project has been built, you may install it either systemwide or (preferably) to a local prefix by running:
$ cmake --install /path/to/build-dir --prefix /path/to/install-dir [--config Release]
Where --config is only required if a multi-config generator was used. Once installed to a local prefix, a project that depends on it may be configured by setting CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to /path/to/install-dir.
Part of my source code is generated by a tool which is also built under our main project with a add_subdirectory. We execute this tool with a execute_process command. Clearly, if the tool is not built before we reach the execute_process statement it will fail.
I use a GLOB (file(GLOB...)) to find the source files generated. I do this because it is not possible to know beforehand how many files are generated, neither their names.
How do I force cmake to wait for the subproject to be compiled before the execute process? I would need something like a DEPENDS property for the execute_process but this option is not available.
# This subproject will source generator the tool
add_subdirectory(generator)
# I need something like: wait_for(generator)
execute_process(COMMAND generator ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/src)
file(GLOB GeneratedSources ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/src/*.cpp)
add_executable(mainprject.exe ${ProcessorSourceFiles}
Command execute_process executes its COMMAND immediately, at configuration stage. So it cannot be arranged after the executable is created with add_executable command: that executable will be built only at build stage.
You need to build subproject at configuration stage too. E.g. with
execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND}
-S ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/generator
-B ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/generator
-G ${CMAKE_GENERATOR}
)
execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND}
--build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/generator
)
The first command invokes cmake for configure the 'generator' project, located under ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/generator directory. With -G option we use for subproject the same CMake generator, as one used for the main project.
The second command builds that project, so it produces generator executable.
After generator executable is created, you may use it for your project:
execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/generator/<...>/generator ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/src)
Here you need to pass absolute path to the generator executable as the first parameter to COMMAND: CMake no longer have generator executable target, so it won't substitute its path automatically.
You will need to model this with target dependencies. The tool "generator" should be a cmake target. In that case use add_custom_target instead of execute_process somthing like this:
add_custom_target(generate_sources ALL COMMAND generator ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/src))
Then add a target dependency to "generator" using add_dependencies:
add_dependencies(generate_sources generator)
This will make sure your target "generate_sources", which runs the tool will only run during build after the target "generator" has been compiled.
The following is false, see the comments for more info:
Use add_dependencies to add a dependency from "mainproject.exe" to "generate_sources". Now this I have never tested, so take with a grain of salt: With CMake more recent than version 3.12, according to the entry on file, you should then be able to change your file command to:
file(GLOB GeneratedSources CONFIGURE_DEPENDS ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/src/*.cpp)
Which I interpret as this will re-glob the files during build if the directory changes.
I have written a Clang-based tool and I want to run it on existing CMake executable target. I want this to be a separate Makefile target, so I can run it without builiding exe target.
There is a solution to run it during exe target build (described in cmake clang-tidy (or other script) as custom target)
set(CLANG_TIDY_EXE ${MY_CLANG_BASED_TOOL} )
set(DO_CLANG_TIDY "${CLANG_TIDY_EXE}" " --my-additional-options")
set_target_properties(
my_exe_target PROPERTIES
CXX_CLANG_TIDY "${DO_CLANG_TIDY}"
)
CMake runs my tool during my_exe_target build. In build log I see:
...
cmake -E __run_co_compile --tidy=my_tool --source=main.cpp -- ..
But is it possible to create a separate target?
Maybe you could use add_custom_command, e.g. (adjust according to your vars and other needs):
add_custom_target(tidyup
COMMAND ${DO_CLANG_TIDY} [...] ${SOURCES}
DEPENDS [...]
WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR})
edit (to address OP question):
A good starting point is to search for __run_co_compile and try to recreate the command from the Makefile rule (if your generator is make). There's no "automatic" propagation of the attributes, because a custom target or command can be anything. You could use the corresponding cmake variables (e.g. CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS, etc) or target properties (e.g. COMPILE_DEFINITIONS) to emulate that.
Is there a way to configure CMake such that a single make command will launch both host and target builds? I have a project that is meant to be run on a target platform but requires some generated data from a generator that needs to run on the host platform (PC). From CMake's documentation and looking around, I need a 2 pass build - first host to create the generator then the target crosscompiling build. My question is specifically how to launch the 2-pass build with a single make command through CMake configurations (not using an external bash or python script).
Things I know
CMake doesn't allow changing toolchain within a single build
Almost solutions like: How to instruct CMake to use the build architecture compiler? Which is fine except I need to skip the 2nd step of using an external script
How to separate what's run during crosscompiling or not cmake - compile natively and crosscompile the same code
It is supposedly possible to launch multiple CMake builds using CMake How to make CMake targeting multiple plattforms in a single build
Turning my comment into an answer
Let's say you have an buildTool sub-directory for the host build tools:
buildTools\CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
project(BuildTools)
add_executable(genfoo genfoo.cpp)
Then you could have a main:
CMakeLists.txt
if (CMAKE_CROSSCOMPILING)
set(_genfoo "bin/genfoo${CMAKE_EXECUTABLE_SUFFIX}")
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT ${_genfoo}
COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND}
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING="Release"
-DCMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_RELEASE:PATH="${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin"
-B"bin"
-H"${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/buildTools"
COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build bin --config Release
)
else()
set(_genfoo genfoo)
add_subdirectory(buildTools)
endif()
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT foo.h
COMMAND ${_genfoo}
DEPENDS ${_genfoo}
)
add_executable(bar bar.cpp foo.h)
target_include_directories(bar PRIVATE ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR})
References
How to instruct CMake to use the build architecture compiler?
I have two projects using CMake.
The first is a shared library. It compiles and installs fine. Currently, it is still necessary to build 'debug' releases of it. So presently it is installed under ~/localdebug. That folder looks like the root of a filesystem with a 'include' and 'lib' directory. The same concept as '/usr/local'.
The second is a program. It needs to compile and link against my library in ~/localdebug. The CMakeLists.txt file for it looks like this:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.6)
set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS "-std=gnu99")
#add_definitions(-pg)
find_library(SANDGROUSE_LIB NAMES sandgrouse)
add_library(http_parser http_parser.c)
add_executable(rsva11001adapter main.c rsva11001.c)
target_link_libraries(rsva11001adapter http_parser ${SANDGROUSE_LIB})
I run the following to set up the make files:
cmake --debug-output -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/home/ericu/localdebug" ..
Based on the CMake wiki, setting DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH does exactly what I want.
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
(since CMake 2.6.0) This is used when searching for include files, binaries, or libraries using either the FIND_PACKAGE(), FIND_PATH(), FIND_PROGRAM(), or FIND_LIBRARY() commands. For each path in the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH list, CMake will check "PATH/include" and "PATH" when FIND_PATH() is called, "PATH/bin" and "PATH" when FIND_PROGRAM() is called, and "PATH/lib" and "PATH" when FIND_LIBRARY() is called. See the documentation for FIND_PACKAGE(), FIND_LIBRARY(), FIND_PATH(), and FIND_PROGRAM() for more details.
However, when I do a 'make VERBOSE=1' this is what I get:
cd /home/ericu/rsva11001adapter/build/src && /usr/bin/gcc -std=gnu99 -g -o CMakeFiles/rsva11001adapter.dir/main.c.o -c /home/ericu/rsva11001adapter/src/main.c
/home/ericu/rsva11001adapter/src/main.c:19:31: fatal error: sandgrouse/server.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
So, it does not seem that CMake is finding things in CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH. It obviously is not adding -I variables to the compiler invocations either.
An inspection of CMakeCache.txt makes it seem as though it has no idea what the variable is:
// No help, variable specified on the command line.
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:UNINITIALIZED=/home/ericu/localdebug
I've been working on this for over an hour. I'm nearly at the point of giving up using CMake if it is this difficult to use a non-standard library with it.
You should instruct CMake to add -I flags when compiling your library:
find_path(SANDGROUSE_INCLUDE_DIR sandgrouse/server.h)
include_directories(${SANDGROUSE_INCLUDE_DIR}
Place these lines before add_library() invocation.