[Qt-creator] [External] Re: Missing files in CMake project. Or adding special source files.

[Tobias Hunger]

Hi Toralf,

On Thu, 2019-05-09 at 13:15 +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
> > > I there anything I
> > > can do to make the CMake project manager recognise "special" files that
> > > are listed in the CMake config?
> > You could list them as sources. CMake tends to ignore most file types, so
> > they
> > are safe to add as sources, but cmake will still report them.
> 
> It's not clear to me what exactly you mean by that.

target_sources(FooTarget PRIVATE ${PROTO_INPUT}) or something along those lines.

This is of course provided that ${PROTO_INPUT} does not contain files that cmake
will mistake for real sources and actually try to build:-)

>  Our "protobuf" files 
> are mentioned already in that CMakeLists have statements like
> 
>     set(PROTO_INPUT MonitoringHeader.proto MessageHeader.proto
>     MetaHeader.proto)
> 
>     protobuf_generate_cpp(PROTO_SRCS PROTO_HDRS ${PROTO_INPUT})
> 
> Doesn't that mean they are already listed as sources? Or are you 
> referring to some other CMake mechanism?

I would expect that function to set up some custom commands. Those will take
inputs and put their results into the sources. I would not be surprised if those
showed up in the project tree (maybe filtered away since the files are probably
marked as generated, check the funnel icon).

The inputs on the other hand will probably not show up.

> 
> > >   Also, how about making manual additions
> > > to the file list? The "obvious" functionality appears to be disabled for
> > > CMake projects...
> > Like adding files into an existing CMake project?
> 
> No necessary. I'm also thinking about files that aren't being built or 
> used as sources for build, but are kept with the project for some 
> reason. One example might be documentation or config files that you want 
> to include in software packages generated independently of cmake. The 
> CMake project won't need to know about these, but it's convenient if Qt 
> Creator is ready to edit them, so as to speak.

The idea behind Projects mode is to show the view the build system has of your
project. I think having such a view is valuable and having too many unrelated
files listed in it will reduce that value. Some exceptions are fine (e.g. header
files which often were completely missing when using cmake) of course, but I do
not want to make the tree to configurable.

If you want a more filesystem based view on your sources, then just use the
filesystem view instead.

If you want to navigate your sources, then check out the locator. Just hit ctrl-
K and start typing the file name, which is way faster than using the project
tree.

Best Regards,
Tobias

-- 
Tobias Hunger, Senior Software Engineer | The Qt Company
The Qt Company GmbH, Rudower Chaussee 13, D-12489 Berlin
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