CMake & ExternalProject: Fails to find specific file - cmake

We have some dependency libraries in our repository. The main part is build with cmake. Now the cmake-makefiles shall build the dependency libraries, which do not have a cmake build system. For one specific library there is a "Makefile.squirrel" which should be used. The cmakelists.txt for that library:
cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 2.8)
include(ExternalProject)
ExternalProject_Add(squirrel,
SOURCE_DIR "./"
UPDATE_COMMAND ""
BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
CONFIGURE_COMMAND ""
BUILD_COMMAND "make -f ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/Makefile.squirrel"
INSTALL_COMMAND ""
)
However, when running make I get an error message:
[ 93%] Performing build step for 'squirrel,'
/bin/sh: make -f /home/enrico/projekte/projectname/dependencies/SQUIRREL2/Makefile.squirrel: not found
make[2]: *** [dependencies/SQUIRREL2/squirrel,-prefix/src/squirrel,-stamp/squirrel,-build] Error 127
make[1]: *** [dependencies/SQUIRREL2/CMakeFiles/squirrel,.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
ls -lA on /home/enrico/projekte/projectname/dependencies/SQUIRREL2/Makefile.squirrel shows that the file exists.
Hardcoding the file path (not an option for the solution) does not work, too.
Any ideas or hints?

Three observations:
1) You're using "squirrel," as the name of the project. Arguments to CMake functions are space separated, so the comma is part of the name you've given. (Probably not what you want.)
2) You should use:
SOURCE_DIR "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}"
rather than
SOURCE_DIR "./"
Because the "./" is simply relative to that full path name anyhow.
3) The real source of your problem is your BUILD_COMMAND value:
BUILD_COMMAND "make -f ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/Makefile.squirrel"
It should read:
BUILD_COMMAND make -f ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/Makefile.squirrel
If you have the quotes there, then the shell is looking for an actual file named "make -f .../Makefile.squirrel" because CMake parses arguments by spaces, but the double quotes tell CMake "this is exactly one argument that includes spaces..." If there are spaces in the expanded value of ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR} then CMake will properly double quote (or escape, depending on the platform/shell) it when it generates the command in its generated makefiles.

You could try writing a script that calls make with the correct makefile. Just export the CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR to an environmental variable that the script reads.

Related

ExternalProject_Add for Makefile project error during build

I am trying to add Postgresql as a dependency for my project for which I am using ExternalProject module to download the source from github and build, but the build step fails when running from cmake (cmake --build .). Configure step seems to succeed and if I go to the Build directory under EP_BASE and do a make it runs successfully. I get the following error during build:
<...>/Source/postgresql_external/src/common/relpath.c:21:10: fatal error: catalog/pg_tablespace_d.h: No such file or directory
21 | #include "catalog/pg_tablespace_d.h"
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make[5]: *** [<builtin>: relpath.o] Error 1
make[4]: *** [Makefile:42: all-common-recurse] Error 2
make[3]: *** [GNUmakefile:11: all-src-recurse] Error 2
My external project add looks like the following:
ExternalProject_Add(postgresql_external
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/postgres/postgres.git
GIT_TAG REL_12_4
CONFIGURE_COMMAND <SOURCE_DIR>/configure --prefix=<INSTALL_DIR>
LOG_CONFIGURE 1
LOG_BUILD 1
LOG_INSTALL 1
)
This is running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, with cmake 3.16.3, gcc 9.3.0
try
ExternalProject_Get_Property(postgresql_external install_dir)
include_directories(${install_dir}/include)
I guess, you haven't propagate include directory to your target yet, but it is evtl. known to your system (thus successful call of manually called make)
Try the following code, it works for me. PotgreSQL uses MAKELEVEL variable to generate header files via perl. When you call make directly it works as expected. But it seems that cmake adds more levels to PotgreSQL's root make, so headers are not generated.
CONFIGURE_COMMAND ./configure <your options>
BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
BUILD_COMMAND $(MAKE) MAKELEVEL=0

CMakeLists.txt not in root directory, can't do an automatic build

I have an issue with a repository not having its CMakeLists in the root directory, namely https://github.com/lz4/lz4
The CMakeLists.txt is in the subfolder contrib/cmake_unofficial.
I already checked similar questions on SO (Is it possible to have cmake build file (CMakeLists.txt) not in root in CLion, cmake - CMakeLists.txt is not in root folder (but is included in source)), but they only provide alternatives, and not a solution applicable to my situation.
Heres the cmake module I came up with:
if(ENABLE_LZ4)
message(STATUS "Using LZ4.")
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -DENABLE_LZ4")
# Enable ExternalProject CMake module
include(ExternalProject)
set(LZ4_SOURCE_DIR ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/lz4)
set(LZ4_BINARY_DIR ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/lib)
# Download and install lz4
ExternalProject_Add(
lz4
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/lz4/lz4.git
GIT_TAG dev
SOURCE_DIR ${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}
BINARY_DIR ${LZ4_BINARY_DIR}
INSTALL_COMMAND ""
CMAKE_ARGS
${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}/contrib/cmake_unofficial
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=${CMAKE_C_COMPILER}
)
# Get lz4 source and binary directories from CMake project
ExternalProject_Get_Property(lz4 source_dir binary_dir)
# Create a liblz4 target to be used as a dependency by the program
add_library(liblz4 IMPORTED SHARED GLOBAL)
add_dependencies(liblz4 lz4)
include_directories(
${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}/lib
)
set(LZ4_LIB ${LZ4_BINARY_DIR}/liblz4.so)
else()
message(STATUS "Not using LZ4.")
set(LZ4_LIB "")
endif()
Here the complete error output:
[ 0%] Performing update step for 'lz4'
Current branch dev is up to date.
[ 1%] Performing configure step for 'lz4'
CMake Error: The source directory "/****/build/lz4" does not appear to contain CMakeLists.txt.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.
CMakeFiles/lz4.dir/build.make:105: recipe for target 'lz4-prefix/src/lz4-stamp/lz4-configure' failed
make[2]: *** [lz4-prefix/src/lz4-stamp/lz4-configure] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:72: recipe for target 'CMakeFiles/lz4.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/lz4.dir/all] Error 2
Makefile:94: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2
I tried adding the path 'contrib/cmake_unofficial' to the CMAKE_ARGS variable (as seen in the module above), but it does not work (seems to be ignored?).
I also tried using PATCH_COMMAND to copy the CMakeLists.txt to the root before the build starts, but the relative paths of the file get messed up.
In other words, i need the cmake command to be called to build the library to be : cmake contrib/cmake_unofficial.
I also tried using CONFIGURE_COMMAND for this, but keep getting a file not found error for some reason (even though the path is correct).
The module has some other issues too, but I'm only interested in the non-root CMakeLists.
Thanks in advance!
ExternalProject separates download and source directories:
DOWNLOAD_DIR - a directory where downloading step is performed
SOURCE_DIR - a directory used as a source one when configuration step is performed
When use git for extract the project, note that git clone is called from the download directory, where it creates new directory with a project sources.
set(LZ4_DOWNLOAD_DIR ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/lz4)
# Set a source dir based on the download one.
set(LZ4_SOURCE_DIR ${LZ4_DOWNLOAD_DIR}/lz4/contrib/cmake_unofficial)
set(LZ4_BINARY_DIR ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/lib)
# Download and install lz4
ExternalProject_Add(
lz4
DOWNLOAD_DIR ${LZ4_DOWNLOAD_DIR} # Set download directory explicitely
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/lz4/lz4.git
GIT_TAG dev
SOURCE_DIR ${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}
BINARY_DIR ${LZ4_BINARY_DIR}
...
)
Probably not the correct way to do it, but this seems to work for me.
I used the CONFIGURE_COMMAND to call cmake on the correct directory.
Then use BUILD_COMMAND to call make
So essentially, it breaks down to this:
ExternalProject_Add(
lz4
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/lz4/lz4.git
GIT_TAG dev
SOURCE_DIR ${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}
BINARY_DIR ${LZ4_BINARY_DIR}
CONFIGURE_COMMAND cmake ${LZ4_SOURCE_DIR}/contrib/cmake_unofficial
BUILD_COMMAND make
INSTALL_COMMAND ""
CMAKE_ARGS
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=${CMAKE_C_COMPILER}
)

Using cmake as the configure tool (CONFIGURE_COMMAND) in CMakes "Add_External_Project" function

I am having an issue with CMakes Add_External_Project functionality (more of an annoyance than anything else). Specifically, I do not understand the keys CONFIGURE_COMMAND, BUILD_COMMAND and INSTALL_COMMAND.
In the following (working) example, which downloads Google's test library, the two files at the end of the question will ensure that the third party libraries are downloaded and built (not installed).
However, when I tried to add configure and build commands as "CONFIGURE_COMMAND" and "BUILD_COMMAND" (cmake . and cmake --build) instead of having to do execute_process CMake craps out with the error message:
[ 55%] Performing configure step for 'googletest'
/bin/sh: 1: cmake .: not found
Am I trying to do something that is obviously not within the scope of the Add_External_Project functionality?
Example Files:
CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 3.0)
project (Test VERSION 0.1.0.0 LANGUAGES CXX)
# Download and unpack googletest at configure time
configure_file("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/CMakeLists.txt.in" "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/googletest-download/CMakeLists.txt" #ONLY)
execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -G "${CMAKE_GENERATOR}" . WORKING_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/googletest-download" )
execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build . WORKING_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/googletest-download")
add_subdirectory("${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/googletest-src" "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/googletest-build")
CMakeLists.txt.in
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
project(third-party NONE)
include(ExternalProject)
ExternalProject_Add(googletest
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/google/googletest.git
GIT_TAG master
SOURCE_DIR "#CMAKE_BINARY_DIR#/googletest-src"
BINARY_DIR "#CMAKE_BINARY_DIR#/googletest-build"
CONFIGURE_COMMAND ""
BUILD_COMMAND ""
INSTALL_COMMAND ""
TEST_COMMAND ""
)
If you don't specify CONFIGURE_COMMAND at all, it will assume a CMake project and run the appropriate cmake command for you (by appropriate, I mean it will use the same CMake generator as your main build, etc.). Similarly, if you leave out BUILD_COMMAND, it will also assume a CMake project and do cmake --build for you. So in your case, just leave out those two lines and ExternalProject_Add() should do exactly what you want.
The main reason you might specify these two options as empty strings is to prevent those steps from doing anything at all. This can be useful, for example, to use ExternalProject_Add() simply for its download and unpacking functionality. This exact situation is used in a technique described here for downloading the source of GoogleTest so it can be added to your project via add_subdirectory(), making it part of your build (see also this answer and other answers to that question for some related material). I suspect this might be where your code is derived from, as the structure looks similar.
For completeness, if you find yourself in a situation where you do need to specify a CMake command, don't use a bare cmake to refer to the command to run. Instead, always use ${CMAKE_COMMAND}, which is provided by CMake as the location of the CMake executable currently being used to process the file. Using this variable means cmake doesn't have to be on the user's PATH and also ensures that if the developer chooses to run a different version of CMake other than the one on the PATH, that same cmake will still be used for the command you are adding.
You can use PATCH_COMMAND like this:
option(WITH_MBEDTLS "Build with mbedtls" OFF)
if(WITH_MBEDTLS)
ExternalProject_Add(external-mbedtls
URL https://github.com/ARMmbed/mbedtls/archive/mbedtls-2.16.1.tar.gz
UPDATE_COMMAND ""
PATCH_COMMAND ./scripts/config.pl set MBEDTLS_THREADING_C &&
./scripts/config.pl set MBEDTLS_THREADING_PTHREAD
CMAKE_ARGS
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/third_party/mbedtls
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE:PATH=${TOOLCHAIN_FILE}
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Debug
-DENABLE_TESTING:BOOL=OFF
-DENABLE_PROGRAMS:BOOL=ON
TEST_COMMAND ""
)
set(MBEDTLS_PREFIX ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/third_party/mbedtls PARENT_SCOPE)
endif(WITH_MBEDTLS)

How to not make install step when building external project with cmake

I'm building dependency project with cmake ExternalProject_Add command:
include(ExternalProject)
...
set(COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../CommonBase)
ExternalProject_Add(CommonBaseProject
SOURCE_DIR ${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}
BINARY_DIR ${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}/build
INSTALL_COMMMAND ""
)
include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include)
include_directories(${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}/include)
add_library(
${LIBRARY_NAME}
SHARED
${SRC_FILES}
${INCLUDE_FILES}
)
target_link_libraries (Bios ${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}/build/libCommonBase.dll)
add_dependencies(Bios CommonBaseProject)
but i get error:
[100%] Linking CXX shared library libCommonBase.dll
[100%] Built target CommonBase
[ 50%] Performing install step for 'CommonBaseProject'
make[3]: *** No rule to make target 'install'. Stop.
I don't need to make install step, so my question is: how to disable it?
You almost had it: Instead of INSTALL_COMMAND "" put something like
INSTALL_COMMAND cmake -E echo "Skipping install step."
You can generate a target for the build step with STEP_TARGETS build and add dependency on this particular target. The step targets are named <external-project-name>-<step-name> so in this case the target representing the build step will be named CommonBaseProject-build.
You probably also want to exclude the CommonBaseProject from the "all" target with EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL TRUE.
ExternalProject_Add(CommonBaseProject
SOURCE_DIR ${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}
BINARY_DIR ${COMMON_BASE_PROJECT_DIR}/build
STEP_TARGETS build
EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL TRUE
)
add_dependencies(Bios CommonBaseProject-build)
Not relevant to your question, which it was already answered, but in my case I had the following ExternalProject_Add directive:
ExternalProject_Add(external_project
# [...]
# Override build/install command
BUILD_COMMAND ""
INSTALL_COMMAND
"${CMAKE_COMMAND}"
--build .
--target INSTALL # Wrong casing for "install" target
--config ${CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE}
)
In this case cmake quits with very similar error (*** No rule to make target 'INSTALL'), but in this case it's the external project that is looking for incorrect uppercase INSTALL target: correct case is install instead. Apparently, that worked in Windows with MSVC but fails in unix operating systems.
Since at least CMake 3.10 the empty string is sufficient to suppress the install step:
Passing an empty string as the <cmd> makes the install step do nothing.
The same goes for the other stages; see the docs for more.
If you're still building with CMake <3.10 then you need to update CMake ;)

Install QGLViewer using Cmake's ExternalProject_Add

I would like to install QGLViewer as an external from source code in a cmake build environment. This is what I have tried so far:
set(QGLViewer_VERSION 2.5.2)
set(QGLViewer_URL_REMOTE "http://www.libqglviewer.com/src/libQGLViewer-${QGLViewer_VERSION}.tar.gz")
ExternalProject_Add(QGLViewer
PREFIX ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/external/qglviewer
URL ${QGLViewer_URL_REMOTE}
BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
CONFIGURE_COMMAND qmake PREFIX="${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/external/qglviewer" QGLVIEWER_STATIC=yes
BUILD_COMMAND make
)
cmake works just fine.
However, when running make, I get a bunch of compilation errors. make is finding the headers installed in my system instead of the ones of the build project directory:
make[4]: warning: jobserver unavailable: using -j1. Add `+' to parent make rule.
Project MESSAGE: Warning: unknown QT: widgets
In file included from /usr/include/QGLViewer/manipulatedFrame.h:26:0,
from /usr/include/QGLViewer/manipulatedCameraFrame.h:26,
from /usr/include/QGLViewer/camera.h:26,
from /usr/include/QGLViewer/qglviewer.h:26,
from animation.h:23,
from animation.cpp:23:
/usr/include/QGLViewer/frame.h:139:3: error: ‘signals’ does not name a type
/usr/include/QGLViewer/frame.h:404:10: error: expected ‘:’ before ‘slots’
/usr/include/QGLViewer/frame.h:404:10: error: ‘slots’ does not name a type
NaN
The solution is to specify to perform the qmake on the file QGLViewer/QGLViewer.pro instead of the default .pro file located in the root folder libQGLViewer-2.5.2/
ExternalProject_Add(QGLViewer
PREFIX ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/external/qglviewer
URL ${QGLViewer_URL_REMOTE}
DOWNLOAD_DIR ${QGLViewer_DSTDIR}
BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
CONFIGURE_COMMAND qmake QGLViewer/QGLViewer.pro QGLVIEWER_STATIC=yes PREFIX=${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/external/qglviewer
BUILD_COMMAND make
)