CMake - set_property could not find CACHE variable - cmake

Disclaimer: I'm aware of this question. However, The OP's needs are different to mine: what he actually wants is to port an app to Linux and therefore the answers go in that line, not answering what I want to know: the reasons of the error.
I'm trying to create a dropdown list in CMake GUI following the instructions in here and here
So I have this very simple CMakeLists.txt:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.6)
project(datasetprograms)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)
#LINES TO MAKE THE GUI DROP-DOWN:
set(TARGET_ARCHITECTURE “arm” CACHE STRING “Architecture to compile to”)
set_property(CACHE TARGET_ARCHITECTURE PROPERTY STRINGS arm x86)
#Add subdirectories for each project
add_subdirectory(helloworld)
Basically I just copied and pasted, following the instructions. However, instead of having a nice drop-down in the CMake GUI, I got the following error:
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:9 (set_property): set_property could
not find CACHE variable TARGET_ARCHITECTURE. Perhaps it has not yet
been created
Question: What I'm doing wrong?

You may check value of variable TARGET_ARCHITECTURE using message() and you will found CACHE is a part of that value.
This is because you use in set() command double quotes which are not common ones (") but language-specific (“). So CMake treats set() command as not CACHE'd one. That is a reason of the error message.

Related

Can NOT find defined MACRO in cmake-3.16 [duplicate]

I'm building a large library using CMake, and I would like users to be able to selectively enable/disable certain parts of my build process.
How can I add command-line options to my CMake build, e.g. so that users may type something like cmake --build-partone --nobuild-parttwo --dothis=true --dothat=false ..?
Apparently the OPTION keyword will create variables that can be set from the CMake GUI, but I can't figure out how to do this from the command line.
Yeah, you should use the option command. You can set options from the command line this way:
//CMakeLists.txt
option(MyOption "MyOption" OFF)
//Command line
cmake -DMyOption=ON MyProjectFolder
Note that -DMyOption must come before the path.
Just a little correction:
If you have other variables to pass, it is recommended to indicate the type of these:
//CMakeLists.txt
option(MyOption "MyOption" OFF)
//Command line
cmake -DMyOption:BOOL=ON -D... MyProjectFolder

CMake: show all modified variables

I would like to have a command or option to list all the modified cache variables of the current build configuration. While cmake -L[AH] is nice, it is also quite overwhelming and doesn't show which are non-default values.
There seems to be a variable property MODIFIED that sounds exactly like what I'm looking for - but the documentation is not very reassuring:
Internal management property. Do not set or get.
This is an internal cache entry property managed by CMake to track interactive user modification of entries. Ignore it.
This question also didn't help: CMAKE: Print out all accessible variables in a script
There are so many ways you could change or initialize variables in CMake (command line, environment variables, script files, etc.) that you won't be able to cover them all.
I just came up with the following script that covers the command line switches. Put the following file in your CMake project's root folder and you get the modified variables printed:
PreLoad.cmake
set(_file "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/UserModifiedVars.txt")
get_directory_property(_vars CACHE_VARIABLES)
list(FIND _vars "CMAKE_BACKWARDS_COMPATIBILITY" _idx)
if (_idx EQUAL -1)
list(REMOVE_ITEM _vars "CMAKE_COMMAND" "CMAKE_CPACK_COMMAND" "CMAKE_CTEST_COMMAND" "CMAKE_ROOT")
file(WRITE "${_file}" "${_vars}")
else()
file(READ "${_file}" _vars)
endif()
foreach(_var IN LISTS _vars)
message(STATUS "User modified ${_var} = ${${_var}}")
endforeach()
This will load before anything else and therefore can relatively easily identify the user modified variables and store them into a file for later reference.
The CMAKE_BACKWARDS_COMPATIBILITY is a cached variable set by CMake at the end of a configuration run and therefor is used here to identify an already configured CMake project.
Reference
CMake: In which Order are Files parsed (Cache, Toolchain, …)?

Successful build of Kicad 4.0.6 in Linux Mageia 5 via fixing a wx-3.0 symbol

I have managed to build the Kicad 4.0.6 in Linux Mageia 5.1 with gcc version 4.9.2. I first manually fixed two wxWidgets 3.0.2 header files in the /usr/include/wx-3.0/wx/ directory: regex.h and features.h. Kicad then compiled successfully. With the native wx-3.0 headers, the compiler generated the error in pcbnew/netlist_reader.cpp due to the undefined variable wxRE_ADVANCED.
The features.h header checks if the macro WX_NO_REGEX_ADVANCED is defined. If yes, features.h UNdefines wxHAS_REGEX_ADVANCED macro, and defines it, if no. The macro wxHAS_REGEX_ADVANCED, in turn, is used in regex.h to determine if among the enum constants wxRE_ADVANCED = 1 is present. The standard prebuilt Mageia 5 packages wxgtku3.0_0 and lib64wxgtku3.0-devel that I installed with the use of Mageia's software manager urpmi from Mageia repository WX_NO_REGEX_ADVANCED is defined, therefore wxHAS_REGEX_ADVANCED is undefined, and, hence, wxRE_ADVANCED is undefined either. Kicad 4.0.6 source package assumes wxRE_ADVANCED = 1, therefore the build process stops with the error.
Then I reverted /usr/include/wx-3.0/wx/regex.h and features.h to their original state and learned how to add the definition of wxRE_ADVANCED to CMakeLists.txt. However, I still have a question.
The recommended format of adding the definition to CMakeLists.txt I found at CMake command line for C++ #define is this:
if (NOT DEFINED wxRE_ADVANCED)
set(wxRE_ADVANCED 1)
endif()
add_definitions(-DwxRE_ADVANCED=$(wxRE_ADVANCED))
However, it did not work! The macro expansion for wxRE_ADVANCED in pcbnew/netlist_reader.cpp was empty. I printed it at compile time inserting the following lines into the netlist_reader.cpp file (this was hard to find, most of the recommended formats did not work. The correct one is in C preprocessor: expand macro in a #warning):
#define __STRINGIFY(TEXT) #TEXT
#define __WARNING(TEXT) __STRINGIFY(GCC warning TEXT)
#define WARNING(VALUE) __WARNING(__STRINGIFY(wxRE_ADVANCED = VALUE))
Pragma (WARNING(wxRE_ADVANCED))
Finally, I simplified the CMakeLists.txt definition down to this, and it was a success:
if (NOT DEFINED wxRE_ADVANCED)
set(wxRE_ADVANCED 1)
endif()
add_definitions(-DwxRE_ADVANCED=1)
My question: what is the meaning of "-DwxRE_ADVANCED=$(wxRE_ADVANCED)" if it does not work? Is it possible not to use set(wxRE_ADVANCED 1), and simply write add_definitions(-DwxRE_ADVANCED=1)? Thank you.
P.S. Yes, the Kicad 4.0.6 build process successfully finished with only one line added to the top level CMakeLists.txt file:
add_definitions(-DwxRE_ADVANCED=1)
A variable is called via $variable or ${variable}. Note the curly brackets, not parentheses.
Also, it is recommended to use:
target_compile_definitions(mytarget PUBLIC wxRE_ADVANCED=1)
on a target directly, rather than the general add_definitions() command.

Getting CMake CHECK_CXX_COMPILER_FLAG to work

Note: This is my first time using CMake. I don't know much about it, so I'm just posting a bunch of information to see if anyone can see my problem.
I would like the ability to automatically determine which c++11 flag is appropriate, given my compiler. There are many examples of this line. Here is my CMakeLists.txt following such an example:
cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 2.8)
#Add the c++11 flag, whatever it is
include(CheckCXXCompilerFlag)
CHECK_CXX_COMPILER_FLAG(-std=c++11 COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11)
CHECK_CXX_COMPILER_FLAG(-std=c++0x COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X)
if(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11")
elseif(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++0x")
else()
message(STATUS "The compiler ${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER} has no C++11 support. Please use a different C++ compiler.")
endif()
project(AnalyzeGames)
set(AnalyzeGames_SRCS AnalyzeGames.cpp)
add_executable(AnalyzeGames ${AnalyzeGames_SRCS})
Here is my cmake output when trying to use this file: http://pastebin.com/3AUwqffD
Here is CMakeError.log: http://pastebin.com/EbNKvGt8
Here is CMakeOutput.log: http://pastebin.com/kVJ0enJC
echo $CC: /usr/bin/gcc
echo $CXX: /usr/bin/g++
I can compile a simple test executable with g++ using either flag manually.
cmake --version: cmake version 2.8.12.2
For some reason CMake is not recognizing that my compiler does support both of those flags.
The cmake output tells you that it does not recognize the '.cxx' extension because it doesn't know that your project is a C++ project. To fix this, you should enable C++ in the project command. Try to change the following line:
project(AnalyzeGames)
to:
project(AnalyzeGames CXX)
and then move it to the 2nd line of the CMakeLists.txt, right under cmake_minimum_required. The configuration should work as expected after this.
TLDR
Compiler checks are only performed in the variable passed is not previously defined, which includes in the cache from previous failed attempts. Use unset(my_var CACHE) to force checking to always occur, or just be aware of this behaviour and clear the cache manually when needed.
Detail
I too had this problem (with cmake 2.8.12.2) and I had to turn on trace output, and step through the code to get a similar toy build to work I had make sure the variables I used (COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11_*) in these calls:
CHECK_CXX_COMPILER_FLAG(-std=c++11 COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11)
CHECK_CXX_COMPILER_FLAG(-std=c++0x COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X)
Were set such that they named themselves:
set(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11 "COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX11")
The other posters solution didn't work for me, it mainly just seemed to limit the detecting of compilers to just CXX and ignored the C compiler.
The issue appears to be with this line of code in the cmake module:
if("${VAR}" MATCHES "^${VAR}$")
Which in the trace output is:
/usr/share/cmake/Modules/CheckCXXSourceCompiles.cmake(30): if(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X MATCHES ^COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X$ )
It looks as if the expression on the left of the MATCHES is replaced with the variables value, but the expression on the right is assumed to be plain text.
If the MATCH fails then the main part of the macro is skipped and according the to the log the check fails.
Looking at later versions of this macro online it looks as if this line has changed to only perform the compile check if the variable is undefined.
It as at this point that I realise that this is the intent / hack of the original code; if the X is undefined then "X" MATCHES "^X$" will be true, but then the compile check can be performed, fail for some other reason and then never be performed again.
So the solution is either force unset of variable in cache before calling the macro using:
unset(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_CXX0X CACHE)
Or clear the cache manually and be prepared for this behaviour.

Proper way to call a found executable in a custom command?

I have a program on my computer, let's say C:/Tools/generate_v23_debug.exe
I have a FindGenerate.cmake file which allows CMake to find that exact path to the executable.
So in my CMake code, I do:
find_program(Generate)
if (NOT Generate_FOUND)
message(FATAL_ERROR "Generator not found!")
So CMake has found the executable. Now I want to call this program in a custom command statement. Should I use COMMAND Generator or COMMAND ${GENERATOR_EXECUTABLE}? Will both of these do the same thing? Is one preferred over the other? Is name_EXECUTABLE a variable that CMake will define (it's not in the FindGenerate.cmake file), or is it something specific to someone else's example code I'm looking at? Will COMMAND Generator be expanded to the correct path?
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT blahblah.txt
COMMAND Generator inputfile1.log
DEPENDS Generator
)
find_program stores its result into the variable given as a first argument. You can verify this by inserting some debug output:
find_program(GENERATOR Generate)
message(${GENERATOR})
Note that find_program does not set any additional variables beyond that. In particular, you mentioned Generate_FOUND and GENERATOR_EXECUTABLE in your question and neither of those gets introduced implicitly by the find_program call.
The second mistake in your program is the use of the DEPENDS option on the add_custom_command. DEPENDS is used to model inter-target dependencies at build time and not to manipulate control flow in the CMakeLists. For example, additional custom command can DEPEND on the output of your command (blahblah.txt), but a custom command cannot DEPEND on the result of a previous find operation.
A working example might look something like this:
find_program(GENERATOR Generate)
if(NOT GENERATOR)
message(FATAL_ERROR "Generator not found!")
endif()
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT blahblah.txt
COMMAND ${GENERATOR} inputfile1.log
)
P.S.: You asked why the code examples were not properly formatted in your question. You indented everything correctly, but you need an additional newline between normal text and code paragraphs. I edited your question accordingly.