🚸 Portability improvements for the QIR runner

[burgholzer]

Description

Picked from #1403.
Improves the portability of the QIR runner by relying on less platform specific functions.

Checklist:

• The pull request only contains commits that are focused and relevant to this change.
• I have added appropriate tests that cover the new/changed functionality.
• I have updated the documentation to reflect these changes.
• I have added entries to the changelog for any noteworthy additions, changes, fixes, or removals.
• I have added migration instructions to the upgrade guide (if needed).
• The changes follow the project's style guidelines and introduce no new warnings.
• The changes are fully tested and pass the CI checks.
• I have reviewed my own code changes.

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes

  • Improved handling of file paths containing spaces across different platforms.
  • Enhanced cross-platform system command execution for better compatibility.

• Chores

  • Updated build configuration for test infrastructure.

_{✏️ Tip: You can customize this high-level summary in your review settings.}

Walkthrough

The changes refactor cross-platform compatibility in the QIR test runner by replacing Windows-specific system call macros with uniform std::system invocations and quoted paths. Additionally, the CMake configuration is updated to explicitly set the linker language for generated QIR circuit targets.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Cross-platform system call refactoring test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp	Eliminates Windows-specific _wsystem macro alias; unifies to std::system across all platforms. Adds path quoting to handle spaces in executable and file paths. Replaces macro-based invocation pattern.
CMake linker configuration test/qir/runtime/CMakeLists.txt	Adds explicit linker language property (LINKER_LANGUAGE CXX) to targets created by ADD_QIR_CIRCUIT macro via set_target_properties.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~5 minutes

Poem

🐰 A hop through paths both wide and small,
With quotes we wrap them, one and all!
Platform-free, the system calls now run,
And linkers speak CXX—the deed is done! 🎉

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	You can run @coderabbitai generate docstrings to improve docstring coverage.

✅ Passed checks (2 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately reflects the main objective of improving QIR runner portability by reducing platform-specific functions.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description includes the required summary, context about PR #1403, and a completed checklist covering all key areas including tests, documentation, and changelog entries.

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings

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📜 Recent review details

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: ASSERTIVE

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f748baa and 5a2dc41.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp
• test/qir/runtime/CMakeLists.txt

🧰 Additional context used

🧠 Learnings (4)

📓 Common learnings

Learnt from: burgholzer
Repo: munich-quantum-toolkit/core PR: 1403
File: test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp:35-35
Timestamp: 2025-12-28T17:05:10.588Z
Learning: In the munich-quantum-toolkit/core repository, Windows Unicode support (via _wsystem) is not needed for test utilities like test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp. Using std::system is acceptable for system calls in tests.

📚 Learning: 2025-12-28T17:05:05.488Z

Learnt from: burgholzer
Repo: munich-quantum-toolkit/core PR: 1403
File: test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp:35-35
Timestamp: 2025-12-28T17:05:05.488Z
Learning: In the munich-quantum-toolkit/core repository, for the test_qir_runner.cpp file under test/qir/runner, use std::system instead of _wsystem. Windows Unicode support is not required in these test utilities, so avoid _wsystem and rely on the standard library's system call. Ensure proper error handling and consider cross-platform portability within tests.

Applied to files:

• test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp

📚 Learning: 2025-11-03T23:09:26.881Z

Learnt from: burgholzer
Repo: munich-quantum-toolkit/core PR: 1287
File: test/qdmi/dd/CMakeLists.txt:9-21
Timestamp: 2025-11-03T23:09:26.881Z
Learning: The CMake functions `generate_device_defs_executable` and `generate_prefixed_qdmi_headers` used in QDMI device test CMakeLists.txt files are provided by the external QDMI library (fetched via FetchContent from https://github.com/Munich-Quantum-Software-Stack/qdmi.git), specifically in the cmake/PrefixHandling.cmake module of the QDMI repository.

Applied to files:

• test/qir/runtime/CMakeLists.txt

📚 Learning: 2025-12-28T17:14:53.890Z

Learnt from: burgholzer
Repo: munich-quantum-toolkit/core PR: 1403
File: src/qdmi/na/CMakeLists.txt:31-38
Timestamp: 2025-12-28T17:14:53.890Z
Learning: In the munich-quantum-toolkit/core repository, the NA device generator target (mqt-core-qdmi-na-device-gen) is intentionally propagated to MQT_CORE_TARGETS via list(APPEND) because it's publicly linked to the NA device library (the NA device uses a public function from the generator). The SC device generator is not propagated because it has no such dependency with the SC device library.

Applied to files:

• test/qir/runtime/CMakeLists.txt

⏰ Context from checks skipped due to timeout of 90000ms. You can increase the timeout in your CodeRabbit configuration to a maximum of 15 minutes (900000ms). (11)

• GitHub Check: 🐍 Test (ubuntu-24.04-arm) / 🐍 ubuntu-24.04-arm
• GitHub Check: 🐍 Test (windows-2022) / 🐍 windows-2022
• GitHub Check: 🐍 Test (ubuntu-24.04) / 🐍 ubuntu-24.04
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Test 🍎 (macos-15-intel, clang, Release) / 🍎 macos-15-intel clang Release
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Test 🏁 (windows-2022, msvc, Debug) / 🏁 windows-2022 msvc Debug
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Test 🍎 (macos-14, clang, Release) / 🍎 macos-14 clang Release
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Test 🏁 (windows-11-arm, msvc, Release) / 🏁 windows-11-arm msvc Release
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Lint / 🚨 Lint
• GitHub Check: 🐍 Lint / 🚨 Lint
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Test 🏁 (windows-2022, msvc, Release) / 🏁 windows-2022 msvc Release
• GitHub Check: 🇨‌ Coverage / 📈 Coverage

🔇 Additional comments (2)

test/qir/runtime/CMakeLists.txt (1)

24-24: LGTM! Explicit linker language specification improves robustness.

Setting the linker language explicitly to CXX is good practice when the target is built from pre-compiled object files, as CMake cannot automatically infer the language. This ensures consistent C++ linkage across platforms.

test/qir/runner/test_qir_runner.cpp (1)

34-35: LGTM! Improved portability with cross-platform std::system usage.

The changes correctly improve cross-platform compatibility by:

• Using std::system uniformly across all platforms (removing Windows-specific macro)
• Quoting both the executable path and file path to properly handle spaces

Based on learnings, std::system is appropriate for test utilities without requiring Windows Unicode support.

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