CTest Error on MacOS: Test Executable not found - c++

Question

I am working on a CMake project. For CI, I have decided to use Azure Pipelines. However I am facing a small problem on MacOS in the testing phase. The problem is that MacOS fails to find the test executable, even when it is there.
Earlier my project wasn't getting built up properly. But now the entire pipeline runs successfully (thanks to the Stack Overflow community) except for the minor glitch on MacOS. I have updated my question and now it tells what problem was and how I fixed it so that it may be helpful to others like me who are new to the world of CI.
Edit 1:
Earlier my CMake task wasn't triggering the build process. This was because I was providing not providing any command-line arguments to CMake. All I did was this:
- task: CMake#1
displayName: Generate CMake Cache
inputs:
workingDirectory: build
I assumed that the CMake task would drive the build process automatically, as it wasn't specified clearly in the documentation what that task actually does. This did nothing apart from printing the CMake usage. Then I found out that we have to run the CMake task twice (once for project configuration and then for the actual build) using appropriate command-line arguments.
Edit 2:
This is my updated AzurePipelines.yml file
Azure Pipelines CI
stages:
- stage: Build
displayName: Build
jobs:
- job: RunCMakeTask
displayName: Run CMake Task
strategy:
matrix:
LinuxDebug:
OS: 'Linux'
imageName: 'ubuntu-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
LinuxRelease:
OS: 'Linux'
imageName: 'ubuntu-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
MacOSDebug:
OS: 'MacOS'
imageName: 'macos-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
MacOSRelease:
OS: 'MacOS'
imageName: 'macos-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
WindowsDebug:
OS: 'Windows'
imageName: 'windows-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
WindowsRelease:
OS: 'Windows'
imageName: 'windows-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
pool:
vmImage: $(imageName)
steps:
- script: mkdir $(BuildConfiguration)
displayName: Create Build Directory
workingDirectory: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)
- task: CMake#1
displayName: Generate CMake Cache
inputs:
workingDirectory: $(BuildConfiguration)
cmakeArgs: '-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=$(BuildConfiguration) ..'
- task: CMake#1
displayName: Run Build Process
inputs:
workingDirectory: $(BuildConfiguration)
cmakeArgs: '--build . --config $(BuildConfiguration)'
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact#1
displayName: Publish Build Artifact
inputs:
targetPath: $(BuildConfiguration)
artifactName: '$(OS)$(BuildConfiguration)'
- stage: Test
displayName: Test
dependsOn: Build
jobs:
- job: RunCTestOnWindows
displayName: Run CTest on Windows
variables:
OS: Windows
strategy:
matrix:
Debug:
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
Release:
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
pool:
vmImage: 'windows-latest'
steps:
- task: DownloadPipelineArtifact#2
displayName: Download Build Artifact
inputs:
artifact: '$(OS)$(BuildConfiguration)'
path: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)/$(BuildConfiguration)
- script: ctest -C $(BuildConfiguration) --output-on-failure
workingDirectory: $(BuildConfiguration)
- job: RunCTestOnUnixBasedSystems
displayName: Run CTest on Unix Based Systems
strategy:
matrix:
LinuxDebug:
OS: 'Linux'
imageName: 'ubuntu-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
LinuxRelease:
OS: 'Linux'
imageName: 'ubuntu-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
MacOSDebug:
OS: 'MacOS'
imageName: 'macos-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'Debug'
MacOSRelease:
OS: 'MacOS'
imageName: 'macos-latest'
BuildConfiguration: 'RelWithDebInfo'
steps:
- task: DownloadPipelineArtifact#2
displayName: Download Build Artifact
inputs:
artifact: '$(OS)$(BuildConfiguration)'
path: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)/$(BuildConfiguration)
- script: find $(BuildConfiguration)/Tests -type f -name "Test*" ! -name "*.*" ! -exec chmod u+rx {} \;
displayName: Change File Permissions
- script: ctest -C $(BuildConfiguration) --output-on-failure
workingDirectory: $(BuildConfiguration)
The pipeline runs fine on Windows and Linux, but I am facing a small problem on MacOS. On MacOS, ctest fails to find the test executable even when it is there. (If there were any problem in my pipeline or my CMakeLists.txt file, it should also have failed on Windows and Linux)
Edit 3:
And in the Test stage on MacOS, I am getting the error:
Test project /home/vsts/work/1/s/Debug
Start 1: StringOperations_CaseIgnore Could not find executable /Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Looked in the following places:
/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/Debug/TestStringOperations
/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/Debug/TestStringOperations
Debug//Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Debug//Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/Debug/TestStringOperations
Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/Debug/TestStringOperations
Debug/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Debug/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
1/1 Test #1: StringOperations_CaseIgnore ......***Not Run 0.00 sec
0% tests passed, 1 tests failed out of 1
Total Test time (real) = 0.00 sec
The following tests FAILED: 1 - StringOperations_CaseIgnore (Not
Run) Unable to find executable:
/Users/runner/work/1/s/Debug/Tests/StringOperations/TestStringOperations
Errors while running CTest
Edit 4:
I have tried to check whether the test executable is actually there or not by using:
ls -l Debug/Tests/StringOperations
And here's the output:
drwxr-xr-x 3 vsts docker 4096 Aug 6 15:05 CMakeFiles
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsts docker 1208 Aug 6 15:05 cmake_install.cmake
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsts docker 642 Aug 6 15:05 CTestTestfile.cmake
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsts docker 9838 Aug 6 15:05 Makefile
-rwxr--r-- 1 vsts docker 1715072 Aug 6 15:05 TestStringOperations
This confirms that the test executable (TestStringOperations) is there at the same place where it was for Windows and Linux, but still the process fails.
Here is the CMakeLists.txt for this executable should you need it:
Set(SRC StringOperations.cpp)
Add_Executable(TestStringOperations ${SRC})
Target_Include_Directories(TestStringOperations PUBLIC
${HEADER_PATH}/StringOperations
)
Target_Link_Libraries(TestStringOperations
PRIVATE ${GTEST_LIBS}
PRIVATE StringOperations
)
Add_Test(NAME StringOperations_CaseIgnore COMMAND TestStringOperations)
I have tried looking for help on this issue on Stack Overflow and some other sites, but their solutions aren't benefitting me.
For example:
CTest can not find executable file and CMake: How to specify directory where ctest should look for executables?
If you need more info, here is my project on GitHub. You can also refer to the pipeline logs at dev.azure.com.
Can you please help me in fixing this problem? Any suggestions regarding the overall implementation of this file are also welcome.

Answer 1

Try running a Publish Pipeline Artifact task after your build. As eluded to in the comments this will publish your build contents and will allow it to be shared across stages.
After doing this then you will also be able to see it as a published artifact in the UI for the pipeline.
# Publish pipeline artifacts
# Publish (upload) a file or directory as a named artifact for the current run
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact#1
inputs:
targetPath: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)'
artifactName: # 'drop'
Also another gut check that can be done at the end of the stage is to include a powershell script to see the contents of the directory you are working in:
-powershell: Get-ChildItem -Path 'Insert root path' -recurse