[feature] Specify targets in CMake.build()

[Ahajha]

What is your suggestion?

My org has been moving away from using EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL for test targets, as it generally makes building + testing easier, but this means we need to specify which targets to build in the package.

Currently, we do the following:

cmake.build(cli_args=["--target", "my_library"])

As a minor QOL, it would be nice if we could say something like

cmake.build(targets=["my_library"])

Have you read the CONTRIBUTING guide?

• I've read the CONTRIBUTING guide

[czoido]

Hi @Ahajha,

Thanks for the question. The CMake build helper does indeed add the target argument, so you can use it like:

cmake.build(target="my_library")

[Ahajha]

Excellent, that is quite useful, it must have been added since the last time I checked.

However, it only supports one argument, so if I have multiple things to build, I would either need two calls (which avoids potential parallelism) or resorting to the method described above. Could the target parameter be made to take either a string or list of strings?

[czoido]

Hi @Ahajha,

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add it to be discussed with the team and let you know soon.

[czoido]

Hi @Ahajha,
We will change this to also accept multiple targets. I have added this to the 2.0.14 milestone.
Thanks a lot for reporting.

Update: I have submitted #14883 this will be in 2.0.14 as:

cmake.build(target=["target1", "target2"])

also valid:

cmake.build(target=["target1"])
cmake.build(target="target1")