[cmake-developers] [CMake 0014429]: SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() Broken for COMPILE_DEFINITIONS?

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

The following issue has been SUBMITTED. 
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http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=14429 
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Reported By:                Rob Stewart
Assigned To:                
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Project:                    CMake
Issue ID:                   14429
Category:                   CMake
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     new
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Date Submitted:             2013-09-20 16:17 EDT
Last Modified:              2013-09-20 16:17 EDT
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Summary:                    SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() Broken for
COMPILE_DEFINITIONS?
Description: 
According to my efforts, SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() fails for COMPILE_DEFINITIONS. 
On the one hand, one might suppose that none of the values should be prefixed by
"-D", thinking that the contents of that property will be enumerated and that
"-D" or "/D" will be inserted ahead of each value on the command line.  That
doesn't work.  The values appear as set by SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES().  So, one
decides to ensure that all values are prefixed by "-D".  That doesn't work
either, according to what I'm seeing.  The problem is that the first one is
prefixed by "-D" and none of the rest are.  IOW, it seems like
SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(), for COMPILE_DEFINITIONS, expects only one definition,
but since one must, in general, use GET_TARGET_PROPERTY() first, to get the
current values, then add new definitions, one is very likely to set multiple
definitions.

Either SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() should require "-D" prefixed to each definition,
when setting COMPILE_DEFINITIONS, or it should expect that no value is prefixed.
 I think that SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() should accept a quoted list (with
semicolons), not just a space separated list of values, so I suggest that
SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(target PROPERTIES COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "value") iterate
value and prepend "-D", as needed.  Since that property is actually used after
it is set, I'm really suggesting that the using code do the iteration
(SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES() should really just save the values it's given).

Steps to Reproduce: 
SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(target PROPERTIES COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "a b c")

Observe "-Da b c" in the compilation command.

SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(target PROPERTIES COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "-Da -Db -Dc")

Observe "-D-Da -Db -Dc" in the compilation command.
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Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
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2013-09-20 16:17 Rob Stewart    New Issue                                    
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