Failed to link to PCL (Property INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES may not contain link-type keyword "optimized".)

[jasjuang]

Currently, I am having a problem linking to pcl that is built by vcpkg.

Host Environment

• OS: Windows 10
• Compiler: Visual Studio 2017

To Reproduce
vcpkg install pcl

Create two files to simulate the downstream user

CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.1)

project(Example)

set(PROJECT_SRCS ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/mycpp.cpp)

find_package( PCL REQUIRED )

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${PROJECT_SRCS})

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} ${PCL_LIBRARIES})

mycpp.cpp

int main(){
  return 0;
}

when I do cmake -A x64 .. it shows the below error

CMake Error at C:/dev/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/pcl/PCLConfig.cmake:679 (set_target_properties):
  Property INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES may not contain link-type keyword
  "optimized".  The INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES property may contain
  configuration-sensitive generator-expressions which may be used to specify
  per-configuration rules.

How can I solve this?

Does the CI in vcpkg check simple downstream link and see whether it's successful? If it's just checking builds and unit tests, can we add a simple downstream linking check to avoid future problems like this?

[cenit]

Unfortunately CI is not doing this basic step which is so important also IMHO
To be clear, it is not even checking unit tests when available inside the port...

[cbezault]

Both doing a simple linking check and running (at least some of) the unit tests are on the roadmap but haven't been implemented yet.

[jasjuang]

Why is the issue closed? The pcl port is still broken.

[Neumann-A]

VCPKG wrappers which might need fixing:

• curlpp
• freeglut (needs debug/release xrandr libs)
• opencv4? (depending on whatever variable OPENCV_MODULES is)

From what I found in the ports folder this seems like a PCL issue which probably sets somewhere the property INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES using some variable MYLIB_LIBRARIES. The fix here would be to simply replace that code with target_link_libraries(target INTERFACE ${MYLIB_LIBRARIES}). If it is not done in a CMakeLists.txt but in a configuration file then remove that line from the configuration file and move it into the required CMakeLists.txt and hope that PCL uses CMake to generate its target files.
Could you add the line PCLConfig.cmake:679 to this issue please?

[traversaro]

Related upstream issues:

• cmake error when finding features component with windows 10 (vcpkg) PointCloudLibrary/pcl#2989
• Simulate downstream user for Windows CI and vcpkg problems PointCloudLibrary/pcl#3289

In particular, a valid workaround seems to be provided in PointCloudLibrary/pcl#2989 (comment) (but I did not tested it directly).

[traversaro]

The offending keywork apparently come from the zlib library (included via the vtk library), see:

optimized;C:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/vtk/../../lib/zlib.lib;
debug;C:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/vtk/../../debug/lib/zlibd.lib;

[Neumann-A]

@traversaro Please give the full line information. Also setting a variable like so

set(SOME_LIBRARIES optimized;C:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/vtk/../../lib/zlib.lib;
debug;C:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/vtk/../../debug/lib/zlibd.lib)

is perfectly fine CMake and to be expected from a _LIBRARIES variables.
As I stated in PointCloudLibrary/pcl#3289 (comment) it is a PCL issue not guarding against the optimized/debug keywords while setting INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES using external supplied _LIBRARIES variables. So the error is not to be searched in VTK but in PCL (But VTK's cmake files should still be checked if they all correctly set debug/optimized versions of their external dependencies. If not that needs to be corrected but is a different issue)

[traversaro]

@Neumann-A I am preparing a patch for the PCL issue: I am fully aware of your comment, and how optimized there is perfectly legal. I just wanted to share my debugging about the issue by printing a portion of "${PCL_${COMPONENT}_LINK_LIBRARIES}" from https://github.com/PointCloudLibrary/pcl/blob/pcl-1.9.1/PCLConfig.cmake.in#L631, and by "offending" I meant "that is highlighting the issue", not that is incorrect.