Behaviour of source_group(TREE ...) with no FILES specified

Code
1

Generating for Xcode using CMake 3.15.3:

Why does:

source_group(TREE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/${my_source_subdir} FILES ${my_files})

do something sensible (all source files in a nested structure), while

source_group(TREE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/${my_source_subdir})

lists all files under a directory called TREE?

If it can implicitly find the files, why doesn’t it implicitly use them to create nested source groups?

2

I guess that is due to the legacy signature of source_group:

source_group(<name> <regex>)

which is equivalent to

source_group(<name> REGULAR_EXPRESSION <regex>)

(see at the bottom of https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/command/source_group.html)

In your case, I guess you could use

source_group(TREE <root> PREFIX <prefix>)

to avoid passing FILES.

I hope this helps!

3

I tried

source_group(TREE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/${my_source_subdir} PREFIX source)

and that doesn’t seem to do anything. I just get the traditional Sources and Headers with all files in there flat.

At this point, it seems the option to omit FILES from source_group(TREE) is meaningless.