How do I debug CMakeLists.txt files?

Question

Is there a possibility to debug CMakeLists.txt files (at least listing of variables) except for the message statement?

Answer 1

Also, read about the env var VERBOSE: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/envvar/VERBOSE.html

I used it this way:

export VERBOSE=defined
make

and got some more verbosity.

In other cases, edit CMakeLists.txt file to include the following line:

set(CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE ON)

(Some post on this is https://bytefreaks.net/programming-2/make-building-with-cmake-verbose ).

Also, there are useful cmake options controlling debug output, see the manpage: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake.1.html