How do I add a library path in cmake

Question

I have 2 folders  inc  and  lib  in my project which have headers and static libs respectively  How do I tell cmake to use those 2 directories for include and linking respectively

User · Accepted Answer

The simplest way of doing this would be to add

include_directories(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/inc)
link_directories(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/lib)

add_executable(foo ${FOO_SRCS})
target_link_libraries(foo bar) # libbar.so is found in ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/lib

The modern CMake version that doesn't add the -I and -L flags to every compiler invocation would be to use imported libraries:

add_library(bar SHARED IMPORTED) # or STATIC instead of SHARED
set_target_properties(bar PROPERTIES
  IMPORTED_LOCATION "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/lib/libbar.so"
  INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include/libbar"
)

set(FOO_SRCS "foo.cpp")
add_executable(foo ${FOO_SRCS})
target_link_libraries(foo bar) # also adds the required include path

If setting the INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES doesn't add the path, older versions of CMake also allow you to use target_include_directories(bar PUBLIC /path/to/include). However, this no longer works with CMake 3.6 or newer.

User · Answer

You had better use find library command instead of link directories  Concretely speaking there are two ways   designate the path within the command find library NAMES gtest PATHS path1 path2     pathN   set the variable CMAKE LIBRARY PATH set CMAKE LIBRARY PATH path1 path2  find library NAMES gtest    the reason is as flowings   Note This command is rarely necessary and should be avoided where there are other choices  Prefer to pass full absolute paths to libraries where possible  since this ensures the correct library will always be linked  The find library   command provides the full path  which can generally be used directly in calls to target link libraries    Situations where a library search path may be needed include  Project generators like Xcode where the user can switch target architecture at build time  but a full path to a library cannot be used because it only provides one architecture  i e  it is not a universal binary   Libraries may themselves have other private library dependencies that expect to be found via RPATH mechanisms  but some linkers are not able to fully decode those paths  e g  due to the presence of things like  ORIGIN   If a library search path must be provided  prefer to localize the effect where possible by using the target link directories   command rather than link directories    The target-specific command can also control how the search directories propagate to other dependent targets

User · Answer

might fail working with link directories  then add each static library like following  target link libraries foo  path to static library libbar a

[c++] How do I add a library path in cmake?

Examples related to c++

Examples related to cmake