Create target that only runs other target

[fdk17]

@Leon0402

But say, I want a shortcut, which does all that and prints the size at the end (which is what arduino does). Then this approach is not possible anymore, as ${targetName}_size should certainly not depend on run or upload.
So I was looking for a more generic approach, which allows me to run targets in a specific order with only one command, without having any dependencies between them.

@Leon0402

But I really don’t like copy and pasting. It’s not even possible to refactor the commands in the target (by using custom_command) and use them in multiple targets.
For me this is a missing feature in cmake.

@fdk17

I think that you may be better off just having ${targetName}_run call all the necessary commands instead. add_dependencies can accept more than one command.

Just noticed the typo. I’ll try to fix it if I can. But here is an example of what I was trying to convey.

add_custom_target(${targetName}_run 
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR } --target ${targetName}_clean
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR } --target ${targetName}
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR } --target ${targetName}_upload
  )

add_custom_target(${targetName}_run_size 
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR } --target ${targetName}_run
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} --build ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR } --target ${targetName}_size
  )

Then you don’t need additional add_dependencies in the function add_avr_executable. You just issue the targets to be executed: clean elf and hex, build elf and hex, and upload. Then you can reuse the commands in new commands. For example ${targetName}_run_size. Or you can issue it from the command line using the --build CMake option or from the build tool like make.