[CMake] Selecting INSTALL target in Visual Studio Configuration by default

[Michael Hertling]

On 04/24/2011 04:06 PM, Paul Baumer wrote:
> Thanks for your help. I have just tried this. But there is a cyclic
> dependency issue.
> 
> install_after_all calls "install" which depends on "ALL_BUILD" and tries to
> build "install_after_all".
> 
> Possible solutions:
> a. break the "install" - "ALL_BUILD" dependency. This sounds kind of
> unhealthy.

This would also be highly inconvenient as one usually expects that the
"install" target depends on the "all" target, so a "make install" will
ensure that the installed package is up-to-date, i.e. completely built.

> b. remove "install_after_all" from ALL_BUILD. What would be the appropriate
> way of doing this?

Drop the ALL clause in the ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET() command, but if I
understand correctly, this contradicts your actual intention since
you would need to trigger the "install_after_all" target explicitly.

Alternatively, you might try to call the "cmake_install.cmake" script
by the custom command instead of triggering the "install" target; it
should be quite the same, but doesn't retrigger the "all" target. On
*nix, I can see the following CMakeLists.txt work and do what you
probably want, in particular without any dependency cycles:

CMAKE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 2.8 FATAL_ERROR)
PROJECT(INSTALL_AFTER_ALL C)
SET(CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE ON)
FILE(WRITE ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/main.c "int main(void){return 0;}\n")
ADD_EXECUTABLE(main main.c)
INSTALL(TARGETS main RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)
ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(install_after_all ALL
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -P ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/cmake_install.cmake)
ADD_DEPENDENCIES(install_after_all main)

However, ATM, I can't check if this works with Visual Studio, too.

Regards,

Michael

> Again, thanks for your help!.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 5:07 PM, David Cole <david.cole at kitware.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Paul Baumer
>> <paul.baumer2 at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> Sorry for not being clear enough. I meant (2).
>>>
>>>> (2) included in the "Build Solution" command, executing after all
>>>> other targets have been built, so that "F7" or "Build All" will
>>>> actually build the INSTALL target?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> In CMake's C++ code, in the
>> cmGlobalGenerator::CreateDefaultGlobalTargets method, the "install"
>> target depends on the "all" target. (i.e. -- all has to be up-to-date
>> before the install rules can be run...)
>>
>> The net result of this is that:
>>
>>  make install
>>
>> ...will build things first, if necessary, before executing the install
>> scripts to copy files around.
>>
>> What you are asking for is for "install" to be *included* in "all" --
>> which is difficult to do, since, traditionally, people are used to
>> install depending on all.
>>
>> One way you could nearly achieve this, without any sort of CMake C++
>> changes at all, would be to add a custom target at the bottom of the
>> top level CMakeLists.txt file, which would execute "make install"
>> *after* all other targets are built. You could even do it generically,
>> regardless of the underlying build system being used, by using
>> something like this in a custom target or custom command call:
>>
>>  add_executable(exe1 ...)
>>  add_executable(exe2 ...)
>>  install( ... install rules for all libs and exes here ...)
>>  ...
>>  add_custom_target(install_after_all ALL
>>    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build . --target install --config
>> ${CMAKE_CFG_INTDIR}
>>  )
>>  add_dependencies(install_after_all exe1 exe2 ... any other
>> "important" target names here, too ... )