[cmake-developers] [CMake 0014571]: CMake does not validate cache entries given on the command line

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

The following issue has been SUBMITTED. 
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http://public.kitware.com/Bug/view.php?id=14571 
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Reported By:                Magnus Johansson
Assigned To:                
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Project:                    CMake
Issue ID:                   14571
Category:                   CMake
Reproducibility:            random
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     new
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Date Submitted:             2013-11-15 08:19 EST
Last Modified:              2013-11-15 08:19 EST
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Summary:                    CMake does not validate cache entries given on the
command line
Description: 
Typically you set a cache entry like this:

cmake -DMYFLAG:string=ON

However, cmake also accepts this degenerate case:

cmake -D:string=ON

When called like this I got very strange build failures:

[ 32%] Building C object progs/bkz/prog/CMakeFiles/bkz.dir/bkz.c.o
cd /import/build/magnus/rembuild/boks/redhat-6.0/progs/bkz/prog && /usr/bin/cc  
-I/import/build/magnus/rembuild/boks/redhat-6.0/BUILD/include    -o
CMakeFiles/bkz.dir/bkz.c.o   -c
/import/build/mj/boks-sources/boks/progs/bkz/prog/bkz.c
Linking C executable ONbkz

Note that when linking, bkz had received the prefix "ON" which shouldn't be
there, and caused subsequent errors.

(CMake got called with bad input like this due to a bug in our build scripts,
where a variable was sometimes not set. This was very hard to track down. If
CMake had validated the input, this would have been much easier to find.)

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Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
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2013-11-15 08:19 Magnus JohanssonNew Issue                                    
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