[CMake] Dependency cycle - why?

Sat May 25 07:51:28 EDT 2019

Hi Robert,

thanks for that, the target name change does seem to help but I am still 
unable to achieve my goal. Here is a simplified example that 
demonstrates the problem:

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION  3.1.0 FATAL_ERROR)
project (demo LANGUAGES NONE)
add_custom_target (prog_target COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E touch prog${CMAKE_EXECUTABLE_SUFFIX})
add_executable (prog IMPORTED)
add_dependencies (prog prog_target)
set_target_properties (prog PROPERTIES IMPORTED_LOCATION ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/prog${CMAKE_EXECUTABLE_SUFFIX})
install (TARGETS prog RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)

which gives the following error at CMake configuration:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:7 (install):
   install TARGETS given target "prog" which does not exist.

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

So the target that 'add_executable(name IMPORTED)' creates is not a real 
executable target. I can change its properties but the 'install(TARGETS 
...)' command thinks it does not exist. Note that a executable target is 
a very simple demonstration and I understand that I can use 
'install(PROGRAM ...)' just about as easily, but when it comes to a 
shared library it gets a lot more complex when using, exporting, and 
instlling it, and it seems that IMPORTED targets fall well short of 
useful when they are actually produced by the current CMake project.

I can understand that an IMPORTED target is perhaps not meant to be 
installable but if so then your statement that "The goal that you have 
is fully supported by CMake" seems to be incorrect. To reiterate, I am 
trying to use foreign tools to make binary targets and wish to have 
CMake treat them *as if* they were created by supported languages like 
C, ++, or Fortran. Am I still missing something?

Regards
Bill Somerville.

On 24/05/2019 20:23, Robert Maynard wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The goal that you have is fully supported by CMake. You have just run
> into a bug in CMake, and you should report this to
> https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/issues .
> Basically at a very high level the name out the add_executable target
> `callback_generator` is the same as the internal name that CMake is
> using for the add_custom_command. This than causes some logic in CMake
> (cmTargetTraceDependencies) to incorrectly build another link between
> the add_custom_command and your add_executable.
>
> The easiest way to solve this issue is name the add_executable target
> to have a different name than the output of your custom command minus
> file extension. So maybe something like  `callback_generator_exec`
>
> On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 2:02 PM Bill Somerville <bill at classdesign.com> wrote:
>> On 13/05/2019 12:03, Bill Somerville wrote:
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I am struggling to understand what the problem is with this:
>>
>> find_program (GO go)
>> set (GOPATH "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/go")
>> file (MAKE_DIRECTORY ${GOPATH})
>>
>> set (sources ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/callback_generator.go)
>> set (build_command ${GO} build)
>> set (output callback_generator${CMAKE_EXECUTABLE_SUFFIX})
>> add_custom_command (OUTPUT ${output}
>>    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E env GOPATH=${GOPATH} CGO_CFLAGS=${CMAKE_CGO_CFLAGS} ${build_command} -o ${output} ${CMAKE_GO_FLAGS} ${sources}
>>    DEPENDS ${sources}
>>    VERBATIM)
>> add_custom_target (callback_generator_target DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${output})
>> add_executable (callback_generator IMPORTED)
>> set_target_properties (callback_generator
>>    PROPERTIES
>>    IMPORTED_LOCATION ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${output}
>>    )
>> add_dependencies (callback_generator callback_generator_target)
>>
>> add_custom_target (server ALL DEPENDS callback_generator)
>>
>> which gives this error:
>>
>>> cmake --version
>> cmake --version
>> cmake version 3.14.3
>>
>>> cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..\..
>> cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..\..
>> -- Configuring done
>> CMake Error: The inter-target dependency graph contains the following strongly connected component (cycle):
>>    "callback_generator_target" of type UTILITY
>>      depends on "callback_generator_target" (strong)
>> The component contains at least one cycle consisting of strong dependencies (created by add_dependencies) that cannot be broken.
>>
>> The set_target_properties () call seems to be part of the problem but I don't understand why.
>>
>> Regards
>> Bill Somerville.
>>
>> Hi again,
>>
>> answering my own post since no one has replied. Clearly my question was too specific. Let me try again with a more general question. I have tools that can generate executables (programs, static libraries, and shared libraries, including DLL import libraries on MS Windows). These tools are not directly supported by CMake but they are both needed within a project that uses them and installs them as the project artefacts. How do I integrate, for example a shared library, into a CMake project as if it were produced by a supported toolchain like C or C++? The library is produced by an add_custom_target() command (not add_custom_command() since the underlying tools do their own dependency checking so it is right to run the target commands every build). I need to have a target that I can use in target_link_libraries() and install(TARGETS ...) just like one would with a CMake generated library made with add_library() and programs made with add_executable().
>>
>> If it helps the tools that are not supported by CMake are the Go language build tools. The project builds some Go programs as utilities but the main project artefact is a shared library with a C language API built using the cgo tools. There are many of C and C++ test programs and example programs as well in the project which need to link against the project shared library etc.
>>
>> Regards
>> Bill Somerville.
>>
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