[cmake-developers] ExternalProject: Use native paths as substitute for directory tokens

[CHEVRIER, Marc]

Offering generator-expressions is a very good idea because it offers a global solution to this problem.

Now regarding the name of the generator, may be TO_NATIVE_PATH is not judicious, (even if problems explained in http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=5939 are, in my point of view, linked to platforms not well handled rather than wrong semantic of TO_NATIVE_PATH) but PATH_FOR_SHELL is, as well, ambiguous at least for two reasons:
* commands defined in add_custom_command, for example, are directly executed without any shell evolved
* A system can have multiple shells supporting different paths syntax. For example, on windows, my shell is tcsh which handle paths with ‘/‘ rather than ‘\'

May be, TO_SYSTEM_PATH or TO_HOST_SYSTEM_PATH make more sense…

Marc




On 27/08/15 17:18, "cmake-developers on behalf of Brad King" <cmake-developers-bounces at cmake.org on behalf of brad.king at kitware.com> wrote:

>On 08/27/2015 10:06 AM, James Johnston wrote:
>> I would vote naming it TO_NATIVE_PATH instead of PATH_FOR_SHELL, for
>> consistency with the existing parameter in the file command.
>
>The file(TO_NATIVE_PATH) command is hopelessly ill-defined:
>
> http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=5939
>
>See also existing discussion about a genex for such conversions:
>
> http://www.cmake.org/Bug/view.php?id=15509
>
>-Brad
>
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