How do I debug CMakeLists.txt files?

cmake
Peter picture Peter · Apr 2, 2014 · Viewed 54.9k times · Source

Is there a possibility to debug CMakeLists.txt files (at least listing of variables) except for the message statement?

Answer

Joe picture Joe · Apr 2, 2014

There is no interactive debugger for CMake, however there are also the flags -Wdev, --debug-output and --trace which might help. Also remember to check the log files CMakeFiles\CMakeOutput.log and CMakeFiles\CMakeError.log which mainly collect outputs of processes called by CMake (for example while checking for presence of a type or header).

Since version 3.7, CMake now officially supports a "server mode" so integration in IDEs is likely to improve in the near future. Initial support exists both in Qt Creator and Visual Studio 2017 RC

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