Cannot run Doxygen from Meson on a C++ project

Question

I cannot run Doxygen through Meson's configuration.

This is the related code in meson.build:

doxygen = find_program('doxygen')
...
run_target('docs', command : 'doxygen ' + meson.source_root() + '/Doxyfile')

The doxygen executable is successfully found:

Program doxygen found: YES (/usr/bin/doxygen)

However, when launched, I get this error message:

[0/1] Running external command docs.
Could not execute command "doxygen /home/project/Doxyfile". File not found.
FAILED: meson-docs

Running it manually from the command line it works:

/usr/bin/doxygen /home/project/Doxyfile
doxygen /home/project/Doxyfile

What is wrong in my meson.build configuration?

I don't know about meson. But what happens when you use in the meson build: `run_target('docs', command : 'where doxygen ')` — albert, Sep 26 '18 at 14:38
@albert - I get: `Could not execute command "where doxygen ". File not found.` `FAILED: meson-docs` — Pietro, Sep 26 '18 at 14:45
@albert - However, if I run `where doxygen` through bash, I get: `where: command not found` — Pietro, Sep 26 '18 at 14:48
Sorry, the command should have been `which` not `where` (mixed up 2 operating systems) — albert, Sep 26 '18 at 14:49
Same result: `Could not execute command "which doxygen ". File not found.` . But now it works from the command line. — Pietro, Sep 26 '18 at 14:52
With: `run_target('docs', command : 'ls')` it works correctly, and prints the directory contents. — Pietro, Sep 26 '18 at 14:56
`ls` is a build in command. What is the outcome of the `echo $PATH` ? — albert, Sep 26 '18 at 14:58
`echo $PATH` does not work: `Could not execute command "echo $PATH". File not found.` Same with a simple `echo`, so the error does not depend on $PATH. — Pietro, Sep 26 '18 at 14:59
Sorry beats me, nearly looks like the spaces are filtered out (try as command `ls -ls`. — albert, Sep 26 '18 at 15:01

pmod · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-27T10:40:08.210

According to reference manual,

command is a list containing the command to run and the arguments to pass to it. Each list item may be a string or a target

So, in your case the whole string is treated by meson as command, i.e. tool name, not as command + arguments. So, try this:

run_target('docs', command : ['doxygen', meson.source_root() + '/Doxyfile'])

Or it could be better to use directly the result of find_program():

doxygen = find_program('doxygen', required : false)
if doxygen.found()
  message('Doxygen found')
  run_target('docs', command : [doxygen, meson.source_root() + '/Doxyfile'])    
else
  warning('Documentation disabled without doxygen')
endif

Note that if you want to improve docs generation with support of Doxyfile.in, take a look at custom_target() instead and example like this.

The highlighting of the word **list** does shine a good light on it as well as the example you give. — albert, Sep 27 '18 at 10:40

Cannot run Doxygen from Meson on a C++ project

1 Answers1