Issue setting Ninja generator on Windows

[Kyr27]

Hello,

I've been trying to get ninja to work so i can use clang-tidy and cppcheck that this project initializer comes with, but whenever i try to set the generator flag to Ninja, CMake throws an error:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:5 (project):
  Generator

    Ninja

  does not support platform specification, but platform

    x64

  was specified.

I've tried removing any x64 mentions i could find, but to no avail. First i tried setting the generator flag in CMakeUserPresets.json but it throws that platform specification error. After that i tried setting the generator to Ninja in CMakePresets.json's ci-win64 configuration preset where i also removed flags-msvc from inherits field and "architecture": "x64" in the process but it still throws that same error from before.

CMakeUserPresets.json

    {
      "name": "dev",
      "binaryDir": "${sourceDir}/build/dev",
      "inherits": "dev-win64",
      "generator": "Ninja"
    },

CMakePresets.json (probably a bad idea to modify?)

    {
      "name": "ci-win64",
      "inherits": ["ci-std"],
      "generator": "Ninja",
      "hidden": true
    },

[friendlyanon]

Sorry for the late reply. Your problem is that you are inheriting a non-empty architecture value from dev-win64. You can set it to an empty string in your dev preset.

[Kyr27]

Thanks, that fixed that issue. I got some other issues after that but fixed all except 1, ninja fails to build because it can not find clang-tidy:

[1/5] Building CXX object CMakeFiles\testapp_lib.dir\source\lib.cpp.obj
FAILED: CMakeFiles/testapp_lib.dir/source/lib.cpp.obj 
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -E __run_co_compile --tidy="clang-tidy;--header-filter=^C:/Users/Kyr27/source/repos/testapp/;--extra-arg-before=--driver-mode=cl" --cppcheck=cppcheck;--inline-suppr --source=C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source\lib.cpp -- C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\2022\COMMUN~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\1444~1.352\bin\Hostx86\x86\cl.exe  /nologo /TP  -IC:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /GR /EHsc /MDd /Zi /Ob0 /Od /RTC1 -std:c++20 /showIncludes /FoCMakeFiles\testapp_lib.dir\source\lib.cpp.obj /FdCMakeFiles\testapp_lib.dir\ /FS -c C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source\lib.cpp
Error running 'clang-tidy': no such file or directory
[2/5] Building CXX object CMakeFiles\testapp_exe.dir\source\main.cpp.obj
FAILED: CMakeFiles/testapp_exe.dir/source/main.cpp.obj
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -E __run_co_compile --tidy="clang-tidy;--header-filter=^C:/Users/Kyr27/source/repos/testapp/;--extra-arg-before=--driver-mode=cl" --cppcheck=cppcheck;--inline-suppr --source=C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source\main.cpp -- C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\2022\COMMUN~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\1444~1.352\bin\Hostx86\x86\cl.exe  /nologo /TP  -IC:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /GR /EHsc /MDd /Zi /Ob0 /Od /RTC1 -std:c++20 /showIncludes /FoCMakeFiles\testapp_exe.dir\source\main.cpp.obj /FdCMakeFiles\testapp_exe.dir\ /FS -c 
C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source\main.cpp
Error running 'clang-tidy': no such file or directory
[3/5] Building CXX object test\CMakeFiles\testapp_test.dir\source\testapp_test.cpp.obj
FAILED: test/CMakeFiles/testapp_test.dir/source/testapp_test.cpp.obj
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -E __run_co_compile --tidy="clang-tidy;--header-filter=^C:/Users/Kyr27/source/repos/testapp/;--extra-arg-before=--driver-mode=cl" --cppcheck=cppcheck;--inline-suppr --source=C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\test\source\testapp_test.cpp -- C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\2022\COMMUN~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\1444~1.352\bin\Hostx86\x86\cl.exe  /nologo /TP  -IC:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\source /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /GR /EHsc /MDd /Zi /Ob0 /Od /RTC1 -std:c++20 /showIncludes /Fotest\CMakeFiles\testapp_test.dir\source\testapp_test.cpp.obj /Fdtest\CMakeFiles\testapp_test.dir\ /FS -c C:\Users\Kyr27\source\repos\testapp\test\source\testapp_test.cpp
Error running 'clang-tidy': no such file or directory
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

The problem is i can't find the download button for it anywhere (unlike cpp-check). Linux users can install it with sudo apt, but how does one install it on Windows, do i need a different compiler like LLVM?

[friendlyanon]

You can install chocolatey, then install the llvm package to get that executable.