Visual Studio Generators platform specification conflict

[RolfKal]

In autobuild_tool_source_environment.py at line 750 and after it states:

            # Of course CMake also needs to know bit width :-P
            # Or at least it used to, until VS 2019.
            if os.environ["AUTOBUILD_ADDRSIZE"] == "64" and vsver < '160':
                AUTOBUILD_WIN_CMAKE_GEN += " Win64"

However this is not quite correct. Since cmake 3.1 the standard name is without " Win64" appendix and the x64 platform is passed through the "-A x64" option. Apparently the generator with " Win64" appendix did ignore in the past the "-A x64" option but at least in the latest cmake versions >= 3.30 it seems that passing "-A x64" when specifying a generator name with " Win64" appendix will cause a cmake error.

And cmake 4.0 and beyond has removed the " Win64" appendix option altogether and requires the platform to be passed through the -A option, which is created from the AUTOBUILD_WIN_VSPLATFORM environment variable.

Another point is that since cmake 3.1 the year behind the version is recommended although not quite required. But at least cmake 4.0 and later will not work without the year specification following the version.

Visual Studio 12 2013
Visual Studio 14 2015
Visual Studio 15 2017
Visual Studio 16 2019

[bennettgoble]

Thanks for the write-up, @RolfKal. Yes, this appears to be out of date. Given that CMake 3.1 has been released for over a decade do you think we should just drop the AUTOBUILD_WIN_CMAKE_GEN += " Win64" line and use -A ... instead?

[RolfKal]

@bennettgoble I believe it should be ok to completely remove that part. The -A x64 is already passed since that gave me an error with cmake 3.29.1, as it does not like this option anymore when the generator name is with the " Win64" appendix.

I'm working with cmake 3.29.1 and Visual Studio 14 2015.

The -A option is documented to work for the Visual Studio gnerators since at least cmake 3.9 and I believe we require at least 3.18 as far as I have seen somewhere but that may be already outdated information too.

I would also update the generator names at line 735+ to include the year as mentioned in my first message above. This is what cmake since 3.0 expects but it did allow for the name without year for backwards compatibility with cmake < 3.0.

[bennettgoble]

@RolfKal Cool, would you be interested in putting together a PR? :)

[RolfKal]

I'm still trying to get my build system setup for the viewer sources and investigating how to get around licensed third party libraries.
Got another patch for the fmodstudio.cmake in the viewer sources to allow using an official locally installed SDK instead of trying to download it from the project server, which of course fails.
But let me clone the autobuild project and prepare a PR, it's not that much of trouble to do and the rest can wait a day.

[RolfKal]

Submitted PR #54 but seems I have to submit a CLA, just not sure how.

[brad-linden]

You can comment on the PR with the text: I have read the CLA Document and I hereby sign the CLA and the bot will pick it up shortly

[brad-linden]

and thanks for the contribution!

[bennettgoble]

Thanks for the PR, @RolfKal. Our viewer CI/CD works fine with these changes. Published in https://github.com/secondlife/autobuild/releases/tag/v3.10.1.