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Use environment variables to specify compiler preferences. #5731

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55088ae
Use environment variables to specify compiler preferences.
crud89 Sep 2, 2025
a78f16c
Merge branch 'MicrosoftDocs:main' into cmake-presets-vs-compiler-sele…
crud89 Sep 9, 2025
453dc40
Fix `environment` name.
crud89 Sep 9, 2025
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24 changes: 15 additions & 9 deletions docs/build/cmake-presets-vs.md
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Expand Up @@ -205,29 +205,33 @@ The official [CMake documentation](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cm

### Select your compilers

You can set C and C++ compilers by using `cacheVariables.CMAKE_C_COMPILER` and `cacheVariables.CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER` in a Configure Preset. It's equivalent to passing `-D CMAKE_C_COMPILER=<value>` and `-D CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=<value>` to CMake from the command line. For more information, see [`CMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_LANG_COMPILER.html#cmake-lang-compiler).
You can set C and C++ compilers by using `environment.CC` and `environment.CXX` in a Configure Preset. For more information, see [`CC`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/envvar/CC.html)/[`CXX`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/envvar/CXX.html).

Use the following examples to build with `cl.exe` and `clang-cl.exe` from Visual Studio. The C++ Clang tools for Windows components must be installed for you to build with `clang-cl`.

Build with `cl.exe`:

```json
"environment": {
"CC": "cl",
"CXX": "cl"
},
"cacheVariables": {
"CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE": "Debug",
"CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX": "${sourceDir}/out/install/${presetName}",
"CMAKE_C_COMPILER": "cl",
"CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER": "cl"
"CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX": "${sourceDir}/out/install/${presetName}"
},
```

Build with `clang`:

```json
"environment": {
"CC": "clang-cl",
"CXX": "clang-cl"
},
"cacheVariables": {
"CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE": "Debug",
"CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX": "${sourceDir}/out/install/${presetName}",
"CMAKE_C_COMPILER": "clang-cl",
"CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER": "clang-cl"
},

"vendor": {
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -264,11 +268,13 @@ To reproduce these builds outside Visual Studio, see [Run CMake from the command
To build on Linux or without the Visual C++ toolset, specify the name of a compiler on your `PATH` instance, or an environment variable that evaluates to the full path of a compiler. Full paths are discouraged so that the file can remain shareable. A preset that builds with GCC version 8 might look like this:

```json
"environment": {
"CC": "gcc-8",
"CXX": "g++-8"
},
"cacheVariables": {
"CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE": "Debug",
"CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX": "${sourceDir}/out/install/${presetName}",
"CMAKE_C_COMPILER": "gcc-8",
"CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER": "g++-8"
"CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX": "${sourceDir}/out/install/${presetName}"
},
```

Expand Down