cmake tests and libs separate view in qt creator

Sandon

I don't know if I have understood what you're saying. I'll try to clarify:

My repo is divided in N libraries: libA libB libC .. libN
Each lib has (at least) two sub-directories: src and tests.
Each lib has a CMakeLists.txt file with inside add_subdirectory of the src and tests folders.
The tests folder contains more directories, for different test executables, each of them containing a CMakeLists.txt file.

I prefer to have tests for libX inside the libX tests subfolder as in this case the library is self-contained.
In this way I can just do whatever I want: open a single lib as a project, open all of them or open them as a group in the particular view I need for the moment. This is because, visually, it's much better to have some libs/tests organized in a particular way.

Again, with qmake, there was no problem and I could really customize everything as I wanted. Cmake should have been an improvement, but if this simple thing is not possible , I'm starting to have some doubts about this switch.

A visual view of my repo:

project/
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── libA/
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── src/
│   └── tests/
│       ├── test1/
│       ├── test2/
│       └── CMakeLists.txt
├── libB/
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── src/
│   └── tests/
│       ├── test1/
│       ├── test2/
│       └── CMakeLists.txt
└── ...other libs...

what I'd like to see is something like this:

libA
libB
tests

then you can click on tests and see the other tests.
Instead, right now, I just see:

libA
libB

and the tests are inside those folders

Edit2: add_custom_target -> didn't know this, it looks like what I need

cristian-adam

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-28873 has a suggestion for using the FOLDER property on targets.

This would allow customisation of the project tree in regards where targets are located.

In this case the obvious folder for tests would be tests.

A future version of Qt Creator will be having this feature, so make sure to watch that bug report! 😀

Sandon

@cristian-adam thank you, I hope there's a workaround though ;)

Sandon

I am trying to play with add_custom_target but no real progress so far. I just succeeded in adding external files grouped inside a custom target (using add_custom_target(tests SOURCES myfolder/file.txt) . Does anyone has ever used this function ?

Sandon

Still trying wih add_custom_target, but no way to make it work

Christian Ehrlicher

I don't see what add_custom_target should have to do with how QtCreator is showing the targets... You have to wait until QtCreator supports the SOURCES property.

Sandon

@Christian-Ehrlicher Well, you'll never know. Many times there are tricks to make things work.
I was also thinking to open two projects, one for the libraries and another for the tests, but again, it does not feel like the right approach.

It is really disappointing not to have this simple feature.

Christian Ehrlicher

@Sandon said in cmake tests and libs separate view in qt creator:

this simple feature.

Feel free to provide a patch when you are so confident that this is a simple task. QtCreator is open source.

Sandon

@Christian-Ehrlicher I wish had more time, but yes.. good reply

cristian-adam

CMake already has the SOURCES property, you just need to use cmake generator expressions to use it.

Take this example:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)

project(WidgetsApp VERSION 0.1 LANGUAGES CXX)

add_subdirectory(app)
add_subdirectory(tests)

add_custom_target(MyApp
    SOURCES $<LIST:TRANSFORM,$<LIST:FILTER,$<TARGET_PROPERTY:WidgetsApp,SOURCES>,EXCLUDE,.*_autogen/.*>,PREPEND,app/>
)

Christian Ehrlicher

@cristian-adam this looks more like a hack to me... 🙂

Christian Ehrlicher

I just saw that I mixed SOURCES And FOLDERS properties - I meant FOLDERS, sorry for the confusion.
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/prop_tgt/FOLDER.html

Sandon

@Christian-Ehrlicher thank you very much! This is quite new to me, so it will take time to understand and rewrite it in a way that works for what I need.. but it could be the "hack/trick" I was looking for.

Edit: after reading it carefully, I am still not sure if this applies to my case. Going to read the documentation. Basically I will need a way to read specific CMakeFiles and associate them to a specific target.

cristian-adam

Regarding FOLDER, yes, I'll have to fix https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-28873 first.

Currently Qt Creator is abusing FOLDER to make a target runnable. See https://doc.qt.io/qtcreator/creator-run-settings.html#cmake-run-targets

Well, actually, I could keep the qtc_runnable special handling, and have original intent. One wouldn't be able to have both.

Sandon

@cristian-adam thank you for your reply.

Do you think is it possible to achieve what I asked with current Qt creator capabilities?

cristian-adam

@Sandon said in cmake tests and libs separate view in qt creator:

@cristian-adam thank you for your reply.

Do you think is it possible to achieve what I asked with current Qt creator capabilities?

Nope. I have a fix for https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-28873, you can take an artifact from https://github.com/cristianadam/qt-creator/actions/runs/9979288965 and try it out.

After the code review is done, you can have a Qt Creator 15 snapshot from https://download.qt.io/development_releases/qtcreator/ when they are available.

cristian-adam

Alternatively you can fork Qt Creator on github, apply the patch from https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt-creator/qt-creator/+/576805 and push a release tag on github.

This will get you a Qt Creator 14 release with the patch in.

cristian-adam

Qt Creator is open source, Qt Creator is written in C++, and you don't have to do much in order to get a build on GitHub.

Sandon

@cristian-adam that's awesome mate, great job. I look forward to try it out. Thanks again!