In this episode, we will see that some files generated during the build are not deleted during the clean process and we will solve this issue with CMake of corse.
What is cleaned?
Once the build is done, we can have a look at the content of the output directory:
λ pwd
D:\cmake_stm32\cmake-build-debug
λ cmake --build .
...
[ 76%] Building C object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/Drivers/STM32F4xx_HAL_Driver/Src/stm32f4xx_ll_usb.c.obj
[ 80%] Building C object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/Src/main.c.obj
[ 84%] Building C object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/Src/stm32f4xx_hal_msp.c.obj
[ 88%] Building C object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/Src/stm32f4xx_it.c.obj
[ 92%] Building C object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/Src/system_stm32f4xx.c.obj
[ 96%] Building ASM object CMakeFiles/nucleo-f413zh.out.dir/BSP/startup_stm32f413xx.s.obj
[100%] Linking C executable nucleo-f413zh.out
text data bss dec hex filename
7564 20 2668 10252 280c nucleo-f413zh.out
mingw32-make[2]: Leaving directory 'D:/cmake_stm32/cmake-build-debug'
[100%] Built target nucleo-f413zh.out
mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory 'D:/cmake_stm32/cmake-build-debug'
λ ls -l
total 632
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 1427 avr. 29 12:17 cmake_install.cmake
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 53118 mai 1 12:26 CMakeCache.txt
drwxr-xr-x 1 z19100018 1049089 0 mai 2 15:13 CMakeFiles/
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 42893 mai 1 12:42 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 7584 mai 2 15:13 nucleo-f413zh.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 11154 mai 1 12:42 nucleo-f413zh.cbp
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 21433 mai 2 15:13 nucleo-f413zh.hex
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 203655 mai 2 15:13 nucleo-f413zh.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 289884 mai 2 15:13 nucleo-f413zh.out
λ ls -l CMakeFiles\nucleo-f413zh.out.dir\BSP\Src\
total 52
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 18416 mai 2 15:13 main.c.obj
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 14956 mai 2 15:13 stm32f4xx_hal_msp.c.obj
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 6224 mai 2 15:13 stm32f4xx_it.c.obj
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 7916 mai 2 15:13 system_stm32f4xx.c.obj
Yes, it was 15:13 when I built the project. Let's clean it and see what files are still here and what files have been deleted.
We have several options to clean the project. In CLion, we have Clean in the Build menu:
From the command line, we can use Make directly (remember that CMake by itself does nothing, it simply generates and uses Makefiles):
λ mingw32-make clean
Or we can use a generic CMake command to invoke the clean target of the generated build scripts:
λ cmake --build . --target clean
Once the project has been cleaned, let's look again at the content of the directory:
λ ls -l CMakeFiles\nucleo-f413zh.out.dir\BSP\Src\
total 0
λ ls -l
total 348
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 1427 avr. 29 12:17 cmake_install.cmake
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 53118 mai 1 12:26 CMakeCache.txt
drwxr-xr-x 1 z19100018 1049089 0 mai 2 15:25 CMakeFiles/
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 42893 mai 1 12:42 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 7584 mai 2 15:25 nucleo-f413zh.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 11154 mai 1 12:42 nucleo-f413zh.cbp
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 21433 mai 2 15:25 nucleo-f413zh.hex
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 203655 mai 2 15:25 nucleo-f413zh.map
All *.obj files and nucleo-f413zh.out have been deleted. Nevertheless we still have 3 files that would like to deleted too:
nucleo-f413zh.binnucleo-f413zh.hexnucleo-f413zh.map
Why are these files still here?
nucleo-f413zh.map is generated because of -Wl,-Map=${PROJECT_NAME}.map,--cref linker option while nucleo-f413zh.bin and nucleo-f413zh.hex are created by the post-build actions that call arm-none-eabi-objcopy.
Cmake is completely unaware that these files exist. Hence there is no reason to delete them.
Configure additional clean files
Telling CMake that some files must be deleted when the clean target is called is easy. We have to change the ADDITIONAL_CLEAN_FILES property of the target that generates them.
The function to do this is set_target_properties().
Add the following code to your CMakeLists.txt:
# Improve clean target
set_target_properties(${EXECUTABLE} PROPERTIES ADDITIONAL_CLEAN_FILES
"${PROJECT_NAME}.bin;${PROJECT_NAME}.hex;${PROJECT_NAME}.map")
Rebuild, clean, check result:
λ mingw32-make all
...
λ mingw32-make clean
...
D:\cmake_stm32\cmake-build-debug
λ ls -l
total 116
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 1427 avr. 29 12:17 cmake_install.cmake
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 53123 mai 2 15:44 CMakeCache.txt
drwxr-xr-x 1 z19100018 1049089 0 mai 2 15:44 CMakeFiles/
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 42893 mai 2 15:44 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 z19100018 1049089 11154 mai 2 15:44 nucleo-f413zh.cbp
Perfect!
Conclusion
CMake may not be aware that some files are created during the build process. The consequence is that these files are not deleted during the clean process.
If you want a neat clean process, simply configure the additional clean files of the CMake target that generates them.
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