CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Should be Set to build_type When Using Variants

[daeden]

Hello again!

I've started using variants somewhat recently and it is a great feature! My only issue is that the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is not being set to build_type and instead is being set to the full variant.

For example, this is what I have in my cmake-variants.yaml

build_type:
default: debug
choices:
debug:
short: Debug
build_type: Debug
settings:
_build_type: Debug
release:
short: Release
build_type: Release
settings:
_build_type: Release

cts_product:
default: all
choices:
all:
short: all
settings:
_cts_product: all

build_list:
default: cts
choices:
cts:
short: cts
settings:
_build_list:
- crabel-shared
- core
- cts
- nodes
qra:
short: qra
settings:
_build_list:
- crabel-shared
- qra

As you can see I set built_type as either 'Debug' or 'Release'. But when I build I see the following:

[build] Build finished with exit code 0

[cpptools] The build configurations generated do not contain the active build configuration. Using 'Debug' for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE instead of 'Release all qra' to ensure that IntelliSense configurations can be found

[cpptools] The build configurations generated do not contain the active build configuration. Using 'Debug' for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE instead of 'Release all qra' to ensure that IntelliSense configurations can be found

At first I thought this was not that big a deal, but recall that I'm using buildType to control my build directory!

#2208

Anyway, this seems like a bug maybe? Or am I doing something wrong?

[bobbrow]

This is tracked in #2120 and there is a PR out for it that we need to test before releasing a version with the fix. We're not sure how long this has been broken but it manifested itself in confusing ways which is why we made the change to log a warning and override the IntelliSense configuration temporarily.

The warning is only about IntelliSense configuration and can be safely ignored until we release a fix.

[daeden]

I thought it was benign, but this seems to impact the ${buildType} variable. Unless something else is going on, the issue is not just a warning.

Before I switched to using variants, switching between Debug and Release meant that my build directory would change from buildDebug to buildRelease.

I accomplish this by having:

"cmake.buildDirectory": "${workspaceFolder}/build${buildType}"

But now the build directory is stubbornly always buildDebug. Perhaps the cpptools warning is actually unrelated. If so, do you how I can fix this issue? It is a big time sink to have to recompile everything when switching from debug to release :(

[bobbrow]

You're right. I was starting a follow up reply that it looked like the actual configuration was incorrect too (which we hadn't seen in previous reports), but had to switch over to some meetings before I finished.

[bobbrow]

I created an issue for this. #2252

[bobbrow]

Can you try using buildType instead of build_type? I don't think the latter is linked to CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE.

[daeden]

OMG! I can't believe my eyes did not see that I was using build_type instead of buildType!

Thanks Bob! I'm back!

And as always, thank you for the quick response!