CMake: How to output semicolon (;) as command options in ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET

Question

Suppose I have the following CMake snippet:

MACRO(ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET_COMMAND tag OUTPUT file)
     ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(tag
        ${ARGN}
     )

     ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(OUTPUT file
        ${ARGN}
     )
ENDMACRO()

ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET_COMMAND(tag
    OUTPUT file
    COMMAND git tag -a -m "${msg}" 1.0.0 HEAD
    VERBATIM
)

If msg contains semicolon such as "msg1;msg2", then the actual command is expanded to

git -a -m "msg1" "msg2" 1.0.0. HEAD

which leads to a syntax error.

I have tried to use \ to escape the ; but to no avail.

What should I do?

Answer 1

There is a special token since 2.8.11 version: $<SEMICOLON> (http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v2.8.11/cmake.html#command:add_custom_command).

I use it for example for such find command:

find /path/to/search -name some\*name \! -path excluded\*Pattern -exec ln -sf "{}" \;

the following way:

set(
    FIND_ARGUMENTS
    "${SEARCH_PATH} -name some\\*name \\! -path exclued\\*Pattern -exec ln -sf {} \\$<SEMICOLON>"
)

separate_arguments(FIND_ARGUMENTS)

add_custom_command(TARGET ${PROJECT}
    POST_BUILD
    COMMAND "find" ${FIND_ARGUMENTS}
    WORKING_DIRECTORY ${WORKING_PATH}
)

Note that with separate_arguments VERBATIM parameter for add_custom_command is not needed.