check_library_exists not works as it should - cmake

In CMakeLists.txt I write:
INCLUDE(CheckLibraryExists)
check_library_exists("libcurl" "" "" HAVE_CURL)
HAVE_CURL is always false, even if libcurl installed, and this function not causes fatal errors.

To check why a a try-compile fails, you can run CMake with the --debug-trycompile option, which will leave behind the buildsystem for the last try_compile command (these are used internally by all the Check... modules).
I didn't run the check, but I looked at the code of CheckLibraryExists, and it is apparently mandatory to specify a function to look for in that library (the second argument to check_library_exists).

Related

Add variables defined in a list to add_compile_definitions() using cmake

I have a list of vars definedinside a cmake which is called using from main CMakeLists.txt:
add_custom_target(gen_a
COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -P "gen_sigs.cmake"
)
add_dependencies(${PROJECT_NAME} gen_a)
My gen_sigs.cmake:
set(SIG_LIST SIGNAL_A=0 SIGNAL_B=1 SIGNAL_C=0 )
I want to use this list to add preprocessor definitions to the compiler command line like (in main CMakeLists.txt):
add_compile_definitions(
SIGNAL_A=0
SIGNAL_B=1
SIGNAL_C=0
)
I tried using the following but it does not work (in main CMakeLists.txt):
add_compile_definitions(
${SIG_LIST}
)
I am new to cmake so any suggestions on how to make this work will be helpful. Also the add_custom_target is defined before the add_compile_definitions() still it doesn't help. My guess is there is some problem with the order of execution because the ${SIG_LIST} has no value when I am printing it in cmakelists.txt. Is there a way to add dependency to add_compile_definitions so that my add_custom_target command gets forcibly executed before the add_compiler_definitions()?
Your question is not very clear, but from what you've shown, the following should work:
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/gen_sigs.cmake")
target_compile_definitions(main_target PRIVATE ${SIG_LIST})
Adding a custom target defers processing until build time, but what you (appear to) want to do is fundamentally a configure/generation time thing. include() will cause the external script to be executed in the same scope as the call, immediately.

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.

How can a CMake variable be hidden?

I have a CMake project which lets a globally set variable (set with -DARDUINO_SDK_PATH=/a/b/c on command line) disappear i.e. suddenly the given value is gone which leads to a fatal error.
I know there are different ways to "hide" a variable (e.g. inside functions or external projects)
In my case:
the variable is not being set explicitly anywhere in the code (e.g. via set() or find_path())
the access which leads to the error is on top level (i.e. not inside a function)
there are instructions (i.e. same file/line) where in one case the variable has the value it's been given and the next time it's gone
Tracing the variable with variable_watch(ARDUINO_SDK_PATH) I can see that everything works fine before the compiler is being checked:
cmake -DARDUINO_SDK_PATH=/a/b/c <path>
...
... everything fine, ${DARDUINO_SDK_PATH} == '/a/b/c' everywhere
...
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/avr-gcc
...
... here the variable is empty and not being traced any more
...
Here is my suggestion:
Does the compiler check (indicated by check for working C compiler .. on the terminal) have it's own variable space and does not know variables provided on command line?
Note: This question is a generalization of this question, which has become way too specialized but might offer some useful background information.
That any modification to variable is not traced after the variable_watch() command seems like a bug somewhere in CMake to me.
Generally speaking a "cached CMake variable" can be hidden by a "normal CMake variable" with the same name. But e.g. find_path() won't run again or modify a variable if already set.
Here is an example:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.4)
project(VariableWatchTest NONE)
variable_watch(MY_TEST_VAR)
set(MY_TEST_VAR "something" CACHE INTERNAL "")
message("${MY_TEST_VAR}")
set(MY_TEST_VAR "hiding something")
message("${MY_TEST_VAR}")
unset(MY_TEST_VAR)
message("${MY_TEST_VAR}")
find_path(MY_TEST_VAR NAMES "CMakeLists.txt" HINTS "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}")
message("${MY_TEST_VAR}")
Would give (without the variable_watch() messages:
-- something
-- hiding something
-- something
-- something
References
What's the CMake syntax to set and use variables?
I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a feature but (at least some) CMake variables are not available in certain steps of the CMake configuration procedure.
You can check this by adding something like this to your toolchain file:
MESSAGE("FOO: ${FOO}")
and run CMake like this
cd build-dir
cmake -DFOO=TEST ..
You will likely see FOO printed with value TEST once in the beginning of the configuration process and later printed again but being empty.
Just don't access variables from the global space inside a toolchain file (doesn't belong there anyway).

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.

Can GNU make execute a rule whenever an error occurs?

This is slightly different from Can a Makefile execute code ONLY when an error has occurred?.
I'd like a rule or special target that is made whenever an error occurs (independent of the given target; without changing the rule for every target as the other answer seems to imply with the || operator).
In dmake there is special target .ERROR that is executed whenever an error condition is detected. Is there a similar thing with GNU make?
(I'm still using GNU make 3.81, but I didn't find anything in the documentation of the new GNU make 4.0 either)
Gnu doesn't support it explicitly, but there's ways to hack almost anything. Make returns 1 if any of the makes fail. This means that you could, on the command line, rerun make with your error rule if the first make failed:
make || make error_targ
Of course, I'll assume you just want to put the added complexity within the makefile itself. If this is the case, you can create a recursive make file:
all:
$(MAKE) normal_targ || $(MAKE) error_targ
normal_targ:
... normal make rules ...
error_targ:
... other make rules ...
This will cause the makefile to try to build normal_targ, and iff it fails, it will run error_targ. It makes it a bit harder to read the makefile for the inexperienced, but it puts all the logic in one place.