CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE IGNORED

[ben.boeckel (Ben Boeckel (Kitware))]

I think you’re confusing different types of generators here. There are two general classes:

• single-config generators (Makefiles, Ninja, etc.)
• multi-config generators (VS, Xcode, Ninja Multi-Config)

The former only support a single build configuration per generate step. The latter defer the selection of the build type to build time (for which cmake and ctest have flags for selecting them).

@mcandre

Why not default to Release type, for both cmake and ctest? Let’s have the simple project case be the easiest to implement!

There is no default for CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE. I suspect this is a historical artifact. I don’t know what would be the implications of changing the default.

@mcandre

ctest and cmake should accept the same CLI flags for overriding build type.

For single-config generators, this would require rerunning the build system. For the multi-config generators, there are flags for selecting the configuration (though they are not the same).

@mcandre

CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE should apply to ctest as well as cmake.

It does for single-config generators in that only the selected configuration is available for testing.

@mcandre

CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is currently ignored for MSVC builds (cmake v3.19)

I believe you mean Visual Studio builds. MSVC works just fine with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE…in single-config generators.

Please feel free to offer suggestions for improving the documentation around CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE.

@mcandre

Separate concern

Please use a separate thread for this. I’ll answer once that is made.