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Debugging CMake Issues

I've been using CMake for many years and our in house C++ library that we use to build interactive systems for conferences, events, startups, etc. makes use of it. The beauty of CMake is that once you've created your CMake scripts setting up your project becomes a very simple task. Also, I like to develop without an IDE like Visual Studio or XCode which is a perfect fit when using CMake from the command line. I'm not going further into the pros and cons because it's mostly about finding the most convenient way that fits you personal needs.

Our library has grown over the years and it can be used for many different projects. It has support for video encoding, decoding, streaming, 3D rendering, serial communication, artnet, osc, touch, gestures, etc. Some of these features need external projects. For a recent project I've been using GStreamer which I wanted to integrate into my CMake scripts but ran into an issue. After spending some time fixing this issue I decided it would be worth to write a blog post as this might be helpfull for you.

CMake provides a feature called External Projects. An external project can be any other project that you want to include in your main CMake project. By using add_dependency() you can tell CMake that your project, for example your library or executable depends on another target. An external project is a target; so you can tie them together.

Most external projects are simple to add. You add the ExternalProject_Add() command, specify the source via URL or GIT_REPOSITORY, the BUILD_COMMAND, etc. and you're good to go. Or at least, until you run into an error.

This was exactly the case where I ran into today and wanted to write down a step by step process you can follow to find out what is causing the error and give you hints how to sovle them. The problem I was facing, was that I was building GStreamer as an external project on Windows and the only message I got in the console output which indicated some sort of error was:

The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

There was no contextual information about what might cause the issue. The command that I used was something like this:

ExternalProject_Add(
  gstbuild
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-build.git
  GIT_SHALLOW 1
  CONFIGURE_COMMAND "meson -Dgst-plugins-ugly:x264=disabled -Ddevtools=disabled build"
  BUILD_COMMAND "ninja -C build"
  INSTALL_COMMAND "meson install -C build"
)

How to debug your External Project

To figure out what is causing the issue you first want to get more information about what is going on: what command is giving you this error. The external projects are executed as custom build steps and in this particular case I was using Visual Studio 2019 as my build system.

To get a more verbose output you have to look at the options that your build system provides. You can check the verbosity options for msbuild.exe here. This meant that I had to add the /verbosity:diagnostic or some other level during the build command.

CMake allows you to pass custom command line arguments to your build system using two dashes followed by the options;

cmake --build . -- /verbosity:diagnostic /fl

To build my projects I normally create a release.bat and the build command I used for this particular project looks like the snippet below. Notice that I use ^ to break lines on Windows; Linux/Mac would use \.

cmake --build . ^
      --target gstbuild ^
      --config "%cmake_config%" ^
      -- /verbosity:diagnostic /fl

I'm using the name of the external project as the --target. This allows you to only build the external project which means that you don't get any diagnostic information for other projects. The diagnostic verbosity level gives you -a lot- of information, so having an option to focus on one target reduces the amount of information you have to look into.
I've added the /fl flag which generates the msbuild.log file so can open it in your editor and search through for the error message you get.

Open the msbuild.log and search for your CONFIGURE_COMMAND or any other command you added to your ExternalProject. In my case I searched for meson -Dgst which I found in the logs and looked something like this:

cd c:\gstreamer\build\win-x86_64\gstbuild-prefix\src\gstbuild-build
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto :cmEnd
C:
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto :cmEnd
"meson -Dgst-plugins-ugly:x264=disabled -Ddevtools=disabled build"
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto :cmEnd
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -E touch C:/gstreamer/build/win-x86_64/gstbuild-prefix/src/gstbuild-stamp/Release/gstbuild-configure
if %errorlevel% neq 0 goto :cmEnd
:cmEnd
endlocal & call :cmErrorLevel %errorlevel% & goto :cmDone
:cmErrorLevel
exit /b %1
:cmDone

To find the issue you have to look at the details of your specific output. In my case I noticed the cd c:\gstreamer\build\win-x86_64\gstbuild-prefix\src\gstbuild-build and the next command: "meson -Dgst-plugins-ugly:x264=disabled -Ddevtools=disabled build". The meson -Dgst-... command was executed from the wrong directory. Also notice the quotes which shouldn't be used.
After finding the cause of the issue, I added BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1 to make sure the CONFIGURE_COMMAND was executed in the correct directory. I also removed the quotes from all of the other steps.
While fixing this issue, I ran into some other errors which were easy to fix by looking at the steps and contents of msbuild.log.

The final and correct external project command that I used to build GStreamer on Windows looks like:

ExternalProject_Add(
  gstbuild
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-build.git
  GIT_SHALLOW 1
  CONFIGURE_COMMAND meson --prefix=<INSTALL_DIR>/installed -Dgst-plugins-ugly:x264=disabled -Ddevtools=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:tests=disabled -Dgst-plugins-good:soup=disabled <INSTALL_DIR>/build 
  BUILD_COMMAND ninja -C <INSTALL_DIR>/build
  UPDATE_COMMAND ""
  INSTALL_COMMAND meson install -C <INSTALL_DIR>/build
  BUILD_BYPRODUCTS ${gst_byproducts}
  BUILD_IN_SOURCE 1
)

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