[CMake] CMake CVS SET gratuitous semicolon

[William A. Hoffman]

At 01:58 PM 2/15/2006, you wrote:
>I'm using CMake CVS built with MinGW / MSYS.  I have this in CMakeLists.txt.
>
>SET(SHARED_FLAGS -DC_NO_PIC_NO_DLL -DPIC)
>
>Then I do cmakesetup from the MSYS shell.  I delete cache, configure, hit ok.  "make -n chicken" reveals:
>
>e:/Dev-Cpp/bin/gcc.exe  -DCBUILDING_LIBCHICKEN -DC_NO_PIC_NO_DLL;-DPIC -Dchicken_EXPORTS   -IE:/devel/src/chicken-2.216   -Dsocklen_t=int -DHAVE_WINDOWS_H -o CMakeFiles/chicken.dir/posixwin.obj   -c E:/devel/src/chicken-2.216/posixwin.c
>
>
>Note the gratuitous semicolon.  When I change my code to
>
>SET(SHARED_FLAGS "-DC_NO_PIC_NO_DLL -DPIC")
>
>then do cmakesetup from the MSYS shell, delete cache, configure, hit ok, "make -n chicken" reveals correct behavior:
>
>e:/Dev-Cpp/bin/gcc.exe  -DCBUILDING_LIBCHICKEN -DC_NO_PIC_NO_DLL -DPIC -Dchicken_EXPORTS   -IE:/devel/src/chicken-2.216   -Dsocklen_t=int -DHAVE_WINDOWS_H -o CMakeFiles/chicken.dir/posixwin.obj   -c E:/devel/src/chicken-2.216/posixwin.c


That is expected behavior.   SET(FOO a b c) is the same as SET(FOO a;b;c), it
sets FOO to a list of elements.  SET(FOO "a b c") sets FOO to a single element.
That being said, I am not exactly sure why we could not expand cmake lists before
we write variables into makefiles.  Is there a case where ; would be expected in a
variable, what would this break?

-Bill