Override CMake in Cygwin

As of this writing, the CMake bundle with Cygwin is on version 3.1.2. This would be a bad news to me as I can't generate visual studio project using this tool. When I was issued a command cmake --help, this will shows a list of supported platform. Whereas the latest version of this writing would be 3.2.0-rc2. It has far more lists of supported platform.

Available generators on version 3.1.2.

Generators

The following generators are available on this platform:
  Unix Makefiles              = Generates standard UNIX makefiles.
  Ninja                       = Generates build.ninja files (experimental).
  CodeBlocks - Ninja          = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - Unix Makefiles = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeLite - Ninja            = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - Unix Makefiles   = Generates CodeLite project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Ninja        = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  KDevelop3                   = Generates KDevelop 3 project files.
  KDevelop3 - Unix Makefiles  = Generates KDevelop 3 project files.
  Kate - Ninja                = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - Unix Makefiles       = Generates Kate project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Ninja      = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Unix Makefiles = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.

Available generators on version 3.2.0-rc2

Generators

The following generators are available on this platform:
  Visual Studio 6             = Generates Visual Studio 6 project files.
  Visual Studio 7             = Generates Visual Studio .NET 2002 project files.
  Visual Studio 10 2010       = Generates Visual Studio 10 (VS 2010) project files.
  Visual Studio 11 2012       = Generates Visual Studio 11 (VS 2012) project files.
  Visual Studio 12 2013       = Generates Visual Studio 12 (VS 2013) project files.
  Visual Studio 14 2015       = Generates Visual Studio 14 (VS 2015) project files.
  Visual Studio 7 .NET 2003   = Generates Visual Studio .NET 2003 project files.
  Visual Studio 8 2005        = Generates Visual Studio 8 2005 project files.
  Visual Studio 9 2008        = Generates Visual Studio 9 2008 project files.
  Borland Makefiles           = Generates Borland makefiles.
  NMake Makefiles             = Generates NMake makefiles.
  NMake Makefiles JOM         = Generates JOM makefiles.
  MSYS Makefiles              = Generates MSYS makefiles.
  MinGW Makefiles             = Generates a make file for use with mingw32-make.
  Unix Makefiles              = Generates standard UNIX makefiles.
  Ninja                       = Generates build.ninja files (experimental).
  Watcom WMake                = Generates Watcom WMake makefiles.
  CodeBlocks - MinGW Makefiles= Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - NMake Makefiles= Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - Ninja          = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - Unix Makefiles = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeLite - MinGW Makefiles  = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - NMake Makefiles  = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - Ninja            = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - Unix Makefiles   = Generates CodeLite project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - MinGW Makefiles = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - NMake Makefiles = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Ninja        = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Kate - MinGW Makefiles      = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - NMake Makefiles      = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - Ninja                = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - Unix Makefiles       = Generates Kate project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - MinGW Makefiles = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - NMake Makefiles = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Ninja      = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Unix Makefiles = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.

How could I upgrade the CMake in Cygwin? Unfortunately, this can't be done since the latest version I got is the one I had already installed. Try thinking out of the box, download the latest CMake in separate path, then override the Cygwin path with a new CMake path in environment variable, this is how I do it:

1. Declare CMAKE_PATH pointing to the new CMake file system.
2. Put this path before CYGWIN_PATH in PATH variable. 

This is how it looks like in PATH variable:

%CMAKE_PATH%\bin;%CYGWIN_PATH%\bin

With this change, I can only use it in DOS command because Cygwin will also reference to version 3.1.2.

How do CMake determine static or dynamic Boost library?

I was trying to integrate Boost filesystem and system module into CMake in the project, but interestingly, I found out that find_package were not functioning properly:

find_package(Boost 1.54.0 COMPONENTS filesystem system REQUIRED)

I just spot this symptom in this morning. When I am generating a project file from Cmake with this command cmake -G “xxx”, I hit an error as mention below:

CMake Error at D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1182 (message):
  Unable to find the requested Boost libraries.

  Boost version: 1.54.0

  Boost include path: C:/Boost/include/boost-1_54

  Could not find the following Boost libraries:

          boost_filesystem
          boost_system

No Boost libraries were found. You may need to set BOOST_LIBRARYDIR to the directory containing Boost libraries or BOOST_ROOT to the location of Boost.

When I have the debug mode turned on, like this set(Boost_DEBUG 1), I have the following piece captured:

-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:890 ] _boost_LIBRARY_SEARCH_DIRS = C:/Boost/lib;C:/Boost/stage/lib;C:/Boost/include/boost-1_54/lib;C:/Boost/include/boost-1_54/../lib;C:/Boost/include/boost-1_54/stage/lib;PATHS;C:/boost/lib;C:/boost;/sw/local/lib
-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1001 ] Searching for FILESYSTEM_LIBRARY_RELEASE: boost_filesystem-vc110-mt-1_54;boost_filesystem-vc110-mt;boost_filesystem-mt-1_54;boost_filesystem-mt;boost_filesystem
-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1037 ] Searching for FILESYSTEM_LIBRARY_DEBUG: boost_filesystem-vc110-mt-gd-1_54;
boost_filesystem-vc110-mt-gd;boost_filesystem-mt-gd-1_54;boost_filesystem-mt-gd;boost_filesystem-mt;boost_filesystem
-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1001 ] Searching for SYSTEM_LIBRARY_RELEASE: boost_system-vc110-mt-1_54;boost_sys
tem-vc110-mt;boost_system-mt-1_54;boost_system-mt;boost_system
-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1037 ] Searching for SYSTEM_LIBRARY_DEBUG: boost_system-vc110-mt-gd-1_54;boost_sy
stem-vc110-mt-gd;boost_system-mt-gd-1_54;boost_system-mt-gd;boost_system-mt;boost_system
-- [ D:/tool/cmake-3.2.0-rc1-win32-x86/share/cmake-3.2/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:1088 ] Boost_FOUND = 1

...

CMake was searching for boost_xxx but I had only libboost_xxx installed in my system. I was wondering how could I direct CMake to take libboost_xxx instead of boost_xxx? Thanks to open source that could allow me to dive into the source code to see what is happening actually. From the clue given above, there is a piece of logic in FindBoost.cmake governing CMake whether a boost library prefix with “lib” or without “lib” should be taken. Here is the piece:

...

set(Boost_LIB_PREFIX "")
if ( WIN32 AND Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS AND NOT CYGWIN )
  set(Boost_LIB_PREFIX "lib")
endif()

...

Since I'm doing this in DOS prompt, WIN32 and NOT CYGWIN are returning true, but Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS were returning false. This reminds me that I have something in my code:

...

set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS OFF)
set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREADED ON)
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME OFF)
set(Boost_ALL_DYN_LINK ON)

...

Clearly, I should ON the Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS to resolve this problem. And this is interesting to know that a boost static library is prefixed with “lib”.