cmake.define vs cmake.args: one works, the other does not?

[inducer]

In my project, this command:

pip install -Ccmake.define=GENERATE_STUBS=OFF . -v

does not seem to set the relevant CMake option, whereas this appears to:

pip install -Ccmake.args=-DGENERATE_STUBS=OFF . -v 

I can see this by simply adding

message("GENERATE_STUBS=${GENERATE_STUBS}")

to CMakeLists.txt.

Relatedly, is there a way to show the cmake command being run under the hood? -Cbuild.verbose=1 does not do that.

FWIW, I'm using uv pip (but it also happens with upstream pip) and scikit-build-core 0.11.4 on Python 3.13.3 on Linux.

[henryiii]

It's

pip install -Ccmake.define.GENERATE_STUBS=OFF . -v

We need to either make the mistake a nice error, or support it. (pip/build/uv turns this into a list if you supply multiple matching prefixes, so we technically could support it. Double (or triple if you use the long form) = looks odd.)

Relatedly, is there a way to show the cmake command being run under the hood?

Yes, this is -Clogging.level = "INFO".