Best/Shortest way to join a list in CMake

Question

What is the best way to join a list in CMake into a string?

By joining I mean convert SET(somelist "a" "b" "c\;c") to "a:b:c;c" where the glue string (":") is choosable. The following code works but it is REALLY long, is there a better way?

FUNCTION(JOIN LISTNAME GLUE OUTPUT)
SET(_TMP_STR "")
  FOREACH(VAL ${${LISTNAME}})
    SET(_TMP_STR "${_TMP_STR}${GLUE}${VAL}")
  ENDFOREACH(VAL ${${LISTNAME}})
  STRING(LENGTH "${GLUE}" GLUE_LEN)
  STRING(LENGTH "${_TMP_STR}" OUT_LEN)
  MATH(EXPR OUT_LEN ${OUT_LEN}-${GLUE_LEN})
  STRING(SUBSTRING "${_TMP_STR}" ${GLUE_LEN} ${OUT_LEN} _TMP_STR) 
  SET(${OUTPUT} "${_TMP_STR}" PARENT_SCOPE)
ENDFUNCTION()

#USAGE:
SET(somelist "a" "b" "c\;c")
JOIN(somelist ":" output)
MESSAGE("${output}") # will output "a:b:c;c"

Unfortunately using STRING(REPLACE ...) does not work:

function(JOINSTRREPLACE VALUES GLUE OUTPUT)
  string (REPLACE ";" "${GLUE}" _TMP_STR "${VALUES}")
  set (${OUTPUT} "${_TMP_STR}" PARENT_SCOPE)
endfunction()
JOINSTRREPLACE("${somelist}" ":" output)
MESSAGE(${output}) # will output "a:b:c\:c"

Answer 1

Usually this task is solved with simple string REPLACE command. You can find a number of such replaces in scripts coming with cmake. But if you really need to care about semicolons inside you values, then you can use the following code:

function(JOIN VALUES GLUE OUTPUT)
  string (REGEX REPLACE "([^\\]|^);" "\\1${GLUE}" _TMP_STR "${VALUES}")
  string (REGEX REPLACE "[\\](.)" "\\1" _TMP_STR "${_TMP_STR}") #fixes escaping
  set (${OUTPUT} "${_TMP_STR}" PARENT_SCOPE)
endfunction()

SET( letters "" "\;a" b c "d\;d" )
JOIN("${letters}" ":" output)
MESSAGE("${output}") # :;a:b:c:d;d

Answer 2

CMake 3.12 is poised to finally add this upstream:

https://github.com/Kitware/CMake/commit/a58158727be4585f9fd71449e9cc9e801c59a009

https://github.com/Kitware/CMake/commit/689eeb67cb87a9ed1d91a4971806488d00e68f42

Answer 3

You can use the string REPLACE function:

function(JOIN VALUES GLUE OUTPUT)
  string (REPLACE ";" "${GLUE}" _TMP_STR "${VALUES}")
  set (${OUTPUT} "${_TMP_STR}" PARENT_SCOPE)
endfunction()

#USAGE:
SET(somelist a b c)
JOIN("${somelist}" ":" output)
MESSAGE("${output}") # will output "a:b:c"