How to properly add include directories with CMake

Question

About a year ago I asked about header dependencies in CMake   I realized recently that the issue seemed to be that CMake considered those header files to be external to the project  At least  when generating a Code  Blocks project the header files do not appear within the project  the source files do   It therefore seems to me that CMake consider those headers to be external to the project  and does not track them in the depends   A quick search in the CMake tutorial only pointed to include directories which does not seem to do what I wish     What is the proper way to signal to CMake that a particular directory contains headers to be included  and that those headers should be tracked by the generated Makefile

User · Answer

I had the same problem   My project directory was like this       --project     ---Classes     ----Application     ----- h and  c files     ----OtherFolders     --main cpp   And what I used to include the files in all those folders       file GLOB source files                h                 cpp               Classes     cpp               Classes     h             add executable Server   source files     And it totally worked

User · Answer

First  you use include directories   to tell CMake to add the directory as -I to the compilation command line  Second  you list the headers in your add executable   or add library   call   As an example  if your project s sources are in src  and you need headers from include  you could do it like this   include directories include   add executable MyExec   src main c   src other source c   include header1 h   include header2 h

User · Answer

Two things must be done   First add the directory to be included   target include directories test PRIVATE   YOUR DIRECTORY     In case you are stuck with a very old CMake version  2 8 10 or older  without support for target include directories  you can also use the legacy include directories instead   include directories   YOUR DIRECTORY     Then you also must add the header files to the list of your source files for the current target  for instance   set SOURCES file cpp file2 cpp   YOUR DIRECTORY  file1 h   YOUR DIRECTORY  file2 h  add executable test   SOURCES     This way  the header files will appear as dependencies in the Makefile  and also for example in the generated Visual Studio project  if you generate one   How to use those header files for several targets   set HEADER FILES   YOUR DIRECTORY  file1 h   YOUR DIRECTORY  file2 h   add library mylib libsrc cpp   HEADER FILES   target include directories mylib PRIVATE   YOUR DIRECTORY   add executable myexec execfile cpp   HEADER FILES   target include directories myexec PRIVATE   YOUR DIRECTORY

User · Answer

CMake is more like a script language if comparing it with other ways to create Makefile  e g  make or qmake   It is not very cool like Python  but still   There are no such thing like a  proper way  if looking in various opensource projects how people include directories  But there are two ways to do it    Crude include directories will append a directory to the current project and all other descendant projects which you will append via a series of add subdirectory commands  Sometimes people say that such approach is legacy  A more elegant way is with target include directories  It allows to append a directory for a specific project target without  maybe  unnecessary inheritance or clashing of various include directories  Also allow to perform even a subtle configuration and append one of the following markers for this command    PRIVATE - use only for this specified build target  PUBLIC - use it for specified target and for targets which links with this project  INTERFACE -- use it only for targets which links with the current project  PS    Both commands allow to mark a directory as SYSTEM to give a hint that it is not your business that specified directories will contain warnings  A similar answer is with other pairs of commands target compile definitions add definitions   target compile options CMAKE C FLAGS

User · Answer

Add include directories   your path here     This will be similar to calling gcc with -I your path here  option   Make sure you put double quotes around the path  Other people didn t mention that and it made me stuck for 2 days  So this answer is for people who are very new to CMake and very confused

User · Answer

This worked for me  set SOURCE main cpp  add executable   PROJECT NAME    SOURCE      target include directories must be added AFTER add executable target include directories   PROJECT NAME  PUBLIC   INTERNAL INCLUDES

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