Running a python script as part of a cmake build - cmake

I'm using cmake for the first time and am just not having luck finding examples that help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. The functionality seems very basic, but nothing I've tried thus far has given me any meaningful output or error.
I have a PRELOAD command for a document, and this works fine as long as the document has already been created.
set(variable_name
PRELOAD ${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt AS output.txt
)
But I want the document generation(which is accomplished via a python script) to be part of the cmake build process as well. The command I want to run is
python_script.py ${_source_directory}/Documents/input.txt
${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt
and I want that to run before the PRELOAD statement is executed.
Here's an example of what I've tried
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT ${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt
COMMAND python_script.py ${_source_directory}/Documents/input.txt
${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt
)
set(variable_name
PRELOAD ${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt AS output.txt
)
But that gives me the same error as if the add_custom_command wasn't even there ("No rule to make target ${_source_directory}/Documents/output.txt").

You do/understand it wrong. As it was mentioned in comments set() has nothing like PRELOAD.
The correct way is to use add_custom_target() which would produce an output.txt in desired directory and then add_dependencies() for target you want to build and which would use the output.txt.

Related

How to run post build commands in meson?

How can I do in meson to run a command after building a target?
Eg. I have an executable:
executable('target.elf', 'source1.c', 'source2.c')
And after target.elf built I want to execute a command (eg. chmod -x target.elf) on it.
I tried custom_target(), but that requires an output. I don't have new output, I just have target.elf. I tried run_command() but I didn't know how to execute it after the building.
executable now has an argument install_mode (added 0.47.0) to specify the file mode in symbolic format and optionally the owner/uid and group/gid for the installed files.
I just noticed that yasushi-shoji has provided this answer already.
The following code should do.
project('tutorial', 'c')
exec = executable('target.elf', 'main.c', build_by_default : false)
custom_target('final binary',
depends : exec,
input : exec,
output : 'fake',
command : ['chmod', '+x', '#INPUT#'],
build_by_default : true)
Note that because I want to always run the fake target, I'm using custom_target(). However, the command chmod + x demo doesn't generate the file fake specified in custom_target(), successive ninja command will always run the target.
If you don't want this behaviour, there are two ways:
You can write a script which chmod the target.elf and then copies it to target, thus effectively creates the target file. Make sure to change the output file in the meson.build if you do so.
If you don't mind typing ninja chmod instead of ninja, you can use run_target().
# optional
run_target('chmod',
command : ['chmod', '+x', exec])
Another alternative is to use install_mode for executable().
Also note that you should always use find_program() instead of plain chmod. This example doesn't use it for simplicity.

In CTest, why is the variable argument to my function not set?

I have a CTestList.cmake file containing this function definition and call:
function(add_test_r testname )
add_test(
${testname} python executeRegressionTestCase.py ${testname}
)
endfunction(add_test_r)
add_test_r(Test01)
I need to support testing through CMake directly, cmake ..; make test, and through CTest without running CMake first. When CMake builds the test target and I run make test, the function above executes fine. However, when I run the same file with CTest, ${testname} is empty. Are function variables not supported in CTestList when running with CTest or is there something I'm missing?
I don't have a definitive answer, but after some testing it looks like CMake does a preprocessing step for the input files. Specifically, it reads in CTestList.cmake, evaluates the variables and functions, and generates an "expanded" CTestTestfile.cmake. Running CTest with a steering script does not run the preprocessing step so the variables and functions are not expanded. A few people on the internet have suggested that the CTestTestfile.cmake used in the steering script should be generated by CMake in the first place. Unfortunately, thats not the use case I'm looking for, but it may help someone else with running into this problem.

How to set CTEST_SOURCE_DIRECTORY

I am trying to setup CTest to run a coverage analysis. It seems like I have to make a MyScript.cmake file and call it with ctest -S MyScript.cmake. I thought a simple example might look like this:
ctest_start(TestCoverage)
ctest_coverage(BUILD ${CTEST_BINARY_DIRECTORY})
but I am getting
ctest_start source directory not specified. Specify source directory as an argument or set CTEST_SOURCE_DIRECTORY
I don't want to hard code this path in the script file as I may want to run it in different places, so where am I supposed to get paths for CTEST_SOURCE_DIRECTORY and CTEST_BINARY_DIRECTORY?

How to use the program's exit status at compile time?

This question is subsequent to my previous one: How to integrate such kind of source generator into CMake build chain?
Currently, the C source file is generated from XS in this way:
set_source_files_properties(${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${file_src_by_xs} PROPERTIES GENERATED 1)
add_custom_target(${file_src_by_xs}
COMMAND ${XSUBPP_EXECUTABLE} ${XSUBPP_EXTRA_OPTIONS} ${lang_args} ${typemap_args} ${file_xs} >${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${file_src_by_xs}
WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}
DEPENDS ${file_xs} ${files_xsh} ${_XSUBPP_TYPEMAP_FILES}
COMMENT "generating source from XS file ${file_xs}"
)
The GENERATED property let cmake don't check the existence of this source file at configure time, and add_custom_target let the xsubpp always re-run at each compile. The reason for always rerun is because xsubpp will generate an incomplete source file even if it fails, so there are possibility that the whole compiling continues with an incomplete source file.
I found it is time consuming to always re-run source generator and recompile it. So I want to have it re-run only when dependent XS files are modified. However, if I do so, the incomplete generated source file must be deleted.
So my question is: is there any way to remove the generated file, only when the program exit abnormally at compile time?
Or more generic: is there any way to run a command depending on another command's exit status at compile time?
You can always write a wrapper script in your favorite language, e.g. Perl or Ruby, that runs xsubpp and deletes the output file if the command failed. That way you can be sure that if it exists, it is correct.
In addition, I would suggest that you use the OUTPUT keyword of add_custom_command to tell CMake that the file is a result of executing the command. (And, if you do that, you don't have to set the GENERATED property manually.)
Inspired by #Lindydancer's answer, I achieved the purpose by multiple COMMANDs in one target, and it don't need to write an external wrapper script.
set(source_file_ok ${source_file}.ok)
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT ${source_file} ${source_file_ok}
DEPENDS ${xs_file} ${xsh_files}
COMMAND rm -f ${source_file_ok}
COMMAND xsubpp ...... >${source_file}
COMMAND touch ${source_file_ok}
)
add_library(${xs_lib} ${source_file})
add_dependencies(${xs_lib} ${source_file} ${source_file_ok})
The custom target has 3 commands. The OK file only exists when xsubpp is success, and this file is added as a dependency of the library. When xsubpp is not success, the dependency on the OK file will force the custom command to be run again.
The only flaw is cross-platform: not all OS have touch and rm, so the name of these two commands should be decided according to OS type.

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.