What s the CMake syntax to set and use variables

Question

I m asking this as a reminder to myself the next time I use CMake  It never sticks  and Google results aren t great   What s the syntax to set and use variables in CMake

User · Answer

Here are a couple basic examples to get started quick and dirty.

One item variable

Set variable:

SET(INSTALL_ETC_DIR "etc")

Use variable:

SET(INSTALL_ETC_CROND_DIR "${INSTALL_ETC_DIR}/cron.d")

Multi-item variable (ie. list)

Set variable:

SET(PROGRAM_SRCS
        program.c
        program_utils.c
        a_lib.c
        b_lib.c
        config.c
        )

Use variable:

add_executable(program "${PROGRAM_SRCS}")

CMake docs on variables

User · Answer

ENV FOO  for usage  where FOO is being picked up from the environment variable  otherwise use as   FOO   where FOO is some other variable  For setting  SET FOO  foo   would be used in CMake

User · Answer

When writing CMake scripts there is a lot you need to know about the syntax and how to use variables in CMake    The Syntax  Strings using set      set MyString  Some Text   set MyStringWithVar  Some other Text    MyString    set MyStringWithQuot  Some quote      MyStringWithVar        Or with string      string APPEND MyStringWithContent     MyString      Lists using set      set MyList  a   b   c   set MyList   MyList   d     Or better with list      list APPEND MyList  a   b   c   list APPEND MyList  d     Lists of File Names    set MySourcesList  File name   File with Space name   list APPEND MySourcesList  File name   File with Space name   add excutable MyExeTarget   MySourcesList     The Documentation   CMake Language Syntax CMake  Variables Lists Strings CMake  Useful Variables CMake set   Command CMake string  Command CMake list   Command Cmake  Generator Expressions   The Scope or  What value does my variable have    First there are the  Normal Variables  and things you need to know about their scope    Normal variables are visible to the CMakeLists txt they are set in and everything called from there  add subdirectory    include    macro   and function     The add subdirectory   and function   commands are special  because they open-up their own scope     Meaning variables set      there are only visible there and they make a copy of all normal variables of the scope level they are called from  called parent scope   So if you are in a sub-directory or a function you can modify an already existing variable in the parent scope with set     PARENT SCOPE  You can make use of this e g  in functions by passing the variable name as a function parameter  An example would be function xyz  resultVar  is setting set    resultVar  1 PARENT SCOPE   On the other hand everything you set in include   or macro   scripts will modify variables directly in the scope of where they are called from     Second there is the  Global Variables Cache   Things you need to know about the Cache    If no normal variable with the given name is defined in the current scope  CMake will look for a matching Cache entry  Cache values are stored in the CMakeCache txt file in your binary output directory  The values in the Cache can be modified in CMake s GUI application before they are generated  Therefore they - in comparison to normal variables - have a type and a docstring  I normally don t use the GUI so I use set     CACHE INTERNAL     to set my global and persistant values    Please note that the INTERNAL cache variable type does imply FORCE In a CMake script you can only change existing Cache entries if you use the set     CACHE     FORCE  syntax  This behavior is made use of e g  by CMake itself  because it normally does not force Cache entries itself and therefore you can pre-define it with another value  You can use the command line to set entries in the Cache with the syntax cmake -D var type value  just cmake -D var value or with cmake -C CMakeInitialCache cmake  You can unset entries in the Cache with unset     CACHE     The Cache is global and you can set them virtually anywhere in your CMake scripts  But I would recommend you think twice about where to use Cache variables  they are global and they are persistant   I normally prefer the set property GLOBAL PROPERTY      and set property GLOBAL APPEND PROPERTY      syntax to define my own non-persistant global variables   Variable Pitfalls and  How to debug variable changes    To avoid pitfalls you should know the following about variables    Local variables do hide cached variables if both have the same name The find     commands - if successful - do write their results as cached variables  so that no call will search again  Lists in CMake are just strings with semicolons delimiters and therefore the quotation-marks are important    set MyVar a b c  is  a b c  and set MyVar  a b c   is  a b c  The recommendation is that you always use quotation marks with the one exception when you want to give a list as list Generally prefer the list   command for handling lists  The whole scope issue described above  Especially it s recommended to use functions   instead of macros   because you don t want your local variables to show up in the parent scope   A lot of variables used by CMake are set with the project   and enable language   calls  So it could get important to set some variables before those commands are used  Environment variables may differ from where CMake generated the make environment and when the the make files are put to use    A change in an environment variable does not re-trigger the generation process  Especially a generated IDE environment may differ from your command line  so it s recommended to transfer your environment variables into something that is cached     Sometimes only debugging variables helps  The following may help you    Simply use old printf debugging style by using the message   command  There also some ready to use modules shipped with CMake itself  CMakePrintHelpers cmake  CMakePrintSystemInformation cmake Look into CMakeCache txt file in your binary output directory  This file is even generated if the actual generation of your make environment fails  Use variable watch   to see where your variables are read written removed  Look into the directory properties CACHE VARIABLES and VARIABLES Call cmake --trace     to see the CMake s complete parsing process  That s sort of the last reserve  because it generates a lot of output    Special Syntax   Environment Variables   You can can read  ENV      and write set ENV           environment variables  Generator Expressions   Generator expressions   lt     gt  are only evaluated when CMake s generator writes the make environment  it comparison to normal variables that are replaced  in-place  by the parser  Very handy e g  in compiler linker command lines and in multi-configuration environments   References   With           you can give variable names in a variable and reference its content  Often used when giving a variable name as function macro parameter   Constant Values  see if   command    With if MyVariable  you can directly check a variable for true false  no need here for the enclosing         True if the constant is 1  ON  YES  TRUE  Y  or a non-zero number   False if the constant is 0  OFF  NO  FALSE  N  IGNORE  NOTFOUND  the empty string  or ends in the suffix -NOTFOUND  This syntax is often use for something like if MSVC   but it can be confusing for someone who does not know this syntax shortcut   Recursive substitutions    You can construct variable names using variables  After CMake has substituted the variables  it will check again if the result is a variable itself  This is very powerful feature used in CMake itself e g  as sort of a template set CMAKE   lang  COMPILER      But be aware this can give you a headache in if   commands  Here is an example where CMAKE CXX COMPILER ID is  MSVC  and MSVC is  1     if    CMAKE CXX COMPILER ID   STREQUAL  MSVC   is true  because it evaluates to if  1  STREQUAL  1   if CMAKE CXX COMPILER ID STREQUAL  MSVC   is false  because it evaluates to if  MSVC  STREQUAL  1   So the best solution here would be - see above - to directly check for if MSVC   The good news is that this was fixed in CMake 3 1 with the introduction of policy CMP0054  I would recommend to always set cmake policy SET CMP0054 NEW  to  only interpret if   arguments as variables or keywords when unquoted    The option   command   Mainly just cached strings that only can be ON or OFF and they allow some special handling like e g  dependencies But be aware  don t mistake the option with the set command  The value given to option is really only the  initial value   transferred once to the cache during the first configuration step  and is afterwards meant to be changed by the user through CMake s GUI     References   How is CMake used  cmake  lost in the concept of global variables  and PARENT SCOPE or add subdirectory alternatives  Looping over a string list How to store CMake build settings CMake compare to empty string with STREQUAL failed When should I quote variables

[cmake] What's the CMake syntax to set and use variables?

One item variable

Multi-item variable (ie. list)

Examples related to cmake