CMakePresets: set source directory

[tq-delimayuki]

Hi,

I was wondering that no one encountered this issue before, but as idk if this is an issue or not I will first start a discussion:

following scenario:

I've got a repo, where my CMakePresets.json is on the ${workspaceFolder} but the CMakeLists.txt is in the ${workspaceFolder}/examples/../app.

Now I got following behaviour:

First I need to restart VS-Code everytime when starting it, because VS-Code will look after a Presets-file in the source folder -> this is not what I want.

I want that it is possible to set the sourceDir to CMakePrestets somehow and then to make it possible to set the sourceDir in the CMakePresets file itself for the upcoming CMakeLists.txt. better woud be if you could one could set up a list from which to choose from.

Is that possible?

What are possibilities to achieve the desired behaviour?

Regards and thanks!

[gcampbell-msft]

Typically, it is assumed that CMakePresets.json files are always along with the CMakeLists.txt in the same directory. I've never seen any examples or usages where they are in different folders, since they represent the same project configuration and they go hand-in-hand.

[tq-delimayuki]

Hi here an example: https://github.com/tq-systems/MBa117xL.SW.MCU.BSP - This is a demo project for a BSP(board support package) used for demonstration purposes in the embedded area. It would be beneficial to have something similar ro what I said for this case, from a top level perspective, if I just want to test the board, I could just change the source dir to whatever I want.

[gcampbell-msft]

I notice that you have a top-level CMakeLists.txt, you could open that folder so that you can have access to everything.

Based on the CMakePresets specification here: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-presets.7.html, there isn't an ability to set the source dir from the CMakePresets, it's assumed to be the root of the project.

With the top-level CMakeLists.txt and CMakePresets, you could construct the root CMakeLists.txt to build all of your examples and then select the target for each example. This could be not what you desire to do, or I could be misunderstanding, but i don't believe the CMakePresets spec allows for what you're asking for.