cmake Getting started with cmake Switching between build types, e.g. debug and release
Example
CMake knows several build types, which usually influence default compiler and linker parameters (such as debugging information being created) or alternative code paths.
By default, CMake is able to handle the following build types:
- Debug: Usually a classic debug build including debugging information, no optimization etc.
- Release: Your typical release build with no debugging information and full optimization.
- RelWithDebInfo:: Same as Release, but with debugging information.
- MinSizeRel: A special Release build optimized for size.
How configurations are handled depends on the generator that is being used.
Some generators (like Visual Studio) support multiple configurations. CMake will generate all configurations at once and you can select from the IDE or using --config CONFIG (with cmake --build) which configuration you want to build. For these generators CMake will try its best to generate a build directory structure such that files from different configurations do not step on each other.
Generators that do only support a single configuration (like Unix Makefiles) work differently. Here the currently active configuration is determined by the value of the CMake variable CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE.
For example, to pick a different build type one could issue the following command line commands:
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug path/to/source
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release path/to/source
A CMake script should avoid setting the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE itself, as it's generally considered the users responsibility to do so.
For single-config generators switching the configuration requires re-running CMake. A subsequent build is likely to overwrite object files produced by the earlier configuration.
