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How to view CMake cache variables

📅 2017-Sep-05 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ cache variable, cmake ⬩ 📚 Archive

Running CMake for a project creates many variables that are required for its own operation and for the project being built. If you use the CMake GUI, then these are the variables which you see populated after you perform Configure and then Generate. When you want to diagnose a CMake build problem at the shell, it is useful to be able to view these variables.

$ cmake -L ..

Note that in the above command, I am in the build directory and the CMakeLists.txt is in the parent directory. This command builds as usual and at the end prints the CMake variables and their values.

$ cmake -LA ..

Note that the number of variables that are printed can be quite high for big projects. I have seen it run into the hundreds.

$ cmake -LAH ..
$ cmake -L -N

This command assumes that the current directory is the build directory containing the cache files, so no directory needs to be specified. This command is quick because it does not do a CMake build. Additionally, you can also add the -AH options as before if you want.

Tried with: CMake 2.8.12.2 and Ubuntu 16.04


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