为什么 cl.exe（Visual Studio 编译器）无法使用 CMake（错误报告）编译项目？

Question

Since I'm new to CMake, I've been attempting to set up a basic CMake application using CMake GUI while following this tutorial . Everything worked fine up until the point when I clicked "Configure". I changed Visual Studio 14 2015 to Visual Studio 16 2019 (because I have a more recent version of Visual Studio) and "Hello World" to "Basic", and after clicking "Configure", I received an error telling me the Visual Studio compiler, cl.exe, could not successfully compile a test program. More details below.

I have already created a CMake project using Visual Studio's built in work-space and it has successfully compiled my project; however, this is undesirable to me as Visual Studio adds a bunch of files to my project that make it look more complicated for a beginner and dirty up my project. This tells me that my Visual Studio installation is not defective, and that something is wrong with CMake.

For those that want to know, my CMakeLists.txt looks like this:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION "3.10")

project("Basic")

add_executable("${PROJECT_NAME}" "main.cpp")

install(TARGETS "${PROJECT_NAME}" DESTINATION bin)
install(FILES "main.cpp" DESTINATION src)

I expect CMake to configure my project correctly like it does for the guy in the tutorial video, but instead I get an error while configuring that says this (Username replaced by "potato" for personal reasons):

Selecting Windows SDK version 10.0.18362.0 to target Windows 6.1.7601.
The C compiler identification is MSVC 19.23.28106.4
The CXX compiler identification is MSVC 19.23.28106.4
Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe
Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe -- broken
CMake Error at C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.16/Modules/CMakeTestCCompiler.cmake:60 (message):
  The C compiler

    "C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe"

  is not able to compile a simple test program.

  It fails with the following output:

    Change Dir: C:/Users/potato/Desktop/Basic/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeTmp

    Run Build Command(s):C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/MSBuild/Current/Bin/MSBuild.exe cmTC_09d22.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64 /p:VisualStudioVersion=16.0 /v:m && Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.3.1+1def00d3d for .NET Framework

    Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.



    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(5589,7): error MSB4023: Cannot evaluate the item metadata "%(FullPath)". The item metadata "%(FullPath)" cannot be applied to the path "@(_DebugSymbolsIntermediatePath->'C:\Users\potato\Desktop\Basic\build\CMakeFiles\CMakeTmp\Debug\%(Filename)%(Extension)')". Illegal characters in path. [C:\Users\potato\Desktop\Basic\build\CMakeFiles\CMakeTmp\cmTC_09d22.vcxproj]






  CMake will not be able to correctly generate this project.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  CMakeLists.txt:3 (project)


Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "C:/Users/potato/Desktop/Basic/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
See also "C:/Users/potato/Desktop/Basic/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log".

CMakeError.log states this:

Determining if the C compiler works failed with the following output:
Change Dir: C:/Users/potato/Desktop/Basic/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeTmp

Run Build Command(s):C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/MSBuild/Current/Bin/MSBuild.exe cmTC_09d22.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64 /p:VisualStudioVersion=16.0 /v:m && Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.3.1+1def00d3d for .NET Framework

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.



C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets(5589,7): error MSB4023: Cannot evaluate the item metadata "%(FullPath)". The item metadata "%(FullPath)" cannot be applied to the path "@(_DebugSymbolsIntermediatePath->'C:\Users\potato\Desktop\Basic\build\CMakeFiles\CMakeTmp\Debug\%(Filename)%(Extension)')". Illegal characters in path. [C:\Users\potato\Desktop\Basic\build\CMakeFiles\CMakeTmp\cmTC_09d22.vcxproj]

Perhaps I should also note that the real username, replaced by "potato", contains an apostrophe. This may be only minimal, but it could be important as I read the error "Illegal characters in path."

Answer 1

It turns out that the problem in my case is that the username for my computer contains an apostrophe. Definitely a strange bug.