[CMake] Custom configuration types in Visual Studio

[David Cole]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Michael Hertling <mhertling at online.de> wrote:
> On 01/12/2012 10:23 PM, Robert Dailey wrote:
>> I see there is documentation for this but it doesn't have an implementation
>> for VS generators:
>> http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=5811
>>
>> Any status updates on this bug? I'd like to be able to create my own debug
>> configuration called DebugStatic that uses the /MTd flag in all projects to
>> link statically against the Microsoft libraries such as CRT.
>>
>> Any help?
>
> Look at the following exemplary project:
>
> CMAKE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 2.8 FATAL_ERROR)
> PROJECT(P C)
> SET(CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES ${CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES} DebugStatic
>    CACHE STRING "" FORCE)
> SET(CMAKE_C_FLAGS_DEBUGSTATIC "/MTd"
>    CACHE STRING "" FORCE)
> SET(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS_DEBUGSTATIC ""
>    CACHE STRING "" FORCE)
> FILE(WRITE ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/main.c "int main(void){return 0;}\n")
> ADD_EXECUTABLE(main main.c)
>
> After "cmake <srcdir>" and a subsequent "cmake ." from within the build
> directory, I can see the DebugStatic configuration appear in the VS IDE
> when the generated solution is opened. Is this what you intend?
>
> However, I do not see DebugStatic when I open the solution right after
> the initial configuration, i.e. without the reconfiguration step. Can
> you confirm this behavior? Does anybody know why the reconfiguration
> is necessary to make the custom configuration appear? This is with
> CMake 2.8.7 and VS 2008.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael
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I don't know why it doesn't appear straight away, (although I suspect
it's because the variable is set after the project command)

But you should never do this unconditionally:

  SET(CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES ${CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES} DebugStatic
    CACHE STRING "" FORCE)

That will simply continuously append to the variable in the cache, and
it will grow on each subsequent configure in the same build tree...
Real code should check whether DebugStatic is in there already, and
avoiding appending if already present.


HTH,
David