if you omit this parameter, library will be static by default. --config Release. If you're including with a directory utils/ then you should not add that directory to your include path, only the . This can all be achieved with CMake's add_library (.) The target name is important to remember, as all further options for building and installing are tied to it. When you have a repetitive folder structure like this it is often handy to create a macro that automates this kind of stuff. My project has two utility library in it. The angle bracket form of include searches in the order of: 1) The paths in the /I statements add_library tells CMake that we want to build a library and to set up the logical target with the name SI. In this case, we will create a subdirectory specifically for our library. HEADER_FILE_ONLY Is this source file only a header file. Creating a Header-Only CMake Target Creating an interface library in CMake is very straightforward: add_library(my-library-name INTERFACE) By specifying INTERFACE as the second parameter to add_library, we are no longer allowed to provide source files since the library is not meant to generate any build output. My CMakeLists.txt file looks like ADD_LIBRARY (ian ian_sources) SOURCE_FILES (ian_sources ian_file1.cxx ian_file1.h ian_file2.cxx ian_file2.h ) Add library files to the project. Any additional module which will depend on this module will just target_link_libraries () the INTERFACE library. 1) Same directory as the file (source or header) that includes the file 2) In the same directory as any currently opened include statements, in reverse order of opening. The first argument to add_library defines the library type. 3. Creates an Object Library. A library's public header files should be namespaced into a directory (i.e., include <mylib/header.h> -it's the only way to stay sane. install (TARGETS): to install compiled libraries and their headers in the assigned install directory you set when running cmake --install blah blah. Rather than placing all of the source files in one directory, we can organize our project with one or more subdirectories. This method creates library like add_executable creates executable file. 3) The paths in the /I statements 4) The paths in the INCLUDE environment. We can . We also add the sub-projects in TBB that are required in the file using ExternalProject_Step. The change I had to make is instead of target_link_libraries ($ {PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE lib) do target_link_libraries ($ {PROJECT_NAME} PUBLIC lib) I build my project with this commands (from the my_proj directory): $ mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. $ cmake --build . But doing just that would be too easy, wouldn't it. MACRO (ADD_SUBLIB libname) #Compute required sources file (GLOB sublib_sources "$ {libname}/src/*.cc") #Create library ADD_LIBRARY ($ {libname} SHARED $ {sublib_sources}) #add this library's header folder to the . However, when installing, we have to do it like that, using two installcommands: install(TARGETS library_name LIBRARY DESTINATION lib) install(FILES ${PUBLIC_HEADERS} cmake --install build --prefix install As per the book, "Since no DESTINATION was specified after FILE_SET, the default destination provided by CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR for HEADERS file sets will be used.", which is said to be include, not lib. I have a CMake project with the following folder structure: my_project build CMakeLists.txt hello_test CMakeLists.txt main.cpp my_libs hello_lib CMakeLists.txt include hello.hpp src hello.cpp The top level "CMakeList.txt" is as: cmake_minimum_required(VERSION . This is set automatically based on the file extension and is used by CMake to determine if certain dependency information should be computed. Making a library with CMake is not that different from making an application - instead of add_executable you call add_library. An object library compiles source files but does not archive or link their object files into a library. 1 Answer. Instead of a static library we can build a shared lib as well: add_library(test SHARED test.c) Linking libraries to executables with CMake. CMake will build the library as libtest.a and install it into lib folder of the install directory. dll files) not supported by the GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain STATIC - statically linked libraries ( .a or .lib files) CMake Makes Working With The Compilers Easier Telling the compiler where your include files are isn't too difficult. jtxa (Josef Angstenberger) April 17, 2022, 11:07pm #2. Next is type of library STATIC or SHARED which I explained before. include_directories(include ${Opencv3_INLCUDE_DIRS} ) 4. target_link_libraries(rovioLib ${Opencv3.0_LIB}) Note: In order to avoid unnecessary troubles, try to add header files and library files to the first item, such as: The ExternalProject_Add will uncompress the TBB source file we downloaded earlier and compile it using as many CPU cores as available in your system. To achieve all this, we'll need to: Organize our source tree into a directory per module, with a CMakeLists per module. Visual Studio (right) (there are maybe other IDEs that also CMake model) Qt Creator Open Qt Creator and choose to open a Project Choose CMakeLists.txt at the root directory of portaudio sources Visual Studio Use cmake to generate a visual studio project Open portaudio.sln in Visual Studio OS: Windows 10 10.0.19041 Here are some of the things you need to take care of: what artifacts should the library produce at install step where install artifacts should be placed add_library (<name> OBJECT [<source>.]) We add the TBB project using the ExternalProject_Add command to the tbb.cmake file like below. We also include our public header file into the install step and tell cmake to put it into include. CMake's add_library - Creating Libraries With CMake Libraries are very useful when a C++ project becomes large enough, we may want to split the code into multiple library and executable CMake targets in order to make our project more modular and understandable. Executables and windows dll files go into bin directory, libraries go into lib directory, and public headers go into include directory at the destination. One way how to solve this is to create an INTERFACE library with only the PUBLIC headers and target_link_libraries () this to both the shared library and the MODULE library. There are several CMake library types which include: SHARED - dynamically linked libraries ( .so or . /my_project --> CMakeLists.txt --> main.cpp --> /utils --> CMakeLists.txt --> common.h --> /base_c --> CMakeLists.txt --> base_c.c --> base_c.h --> /base_cpp --> CMakeLists.txt --> base_cpp.cpp --> base_cpp.hpp If you add only sources, then you won't see headers in IDE-generated project. Here we have simplified syntax of add_library (<name> [STATIC | SHARED] [<source>.]). add_library(SI INTERFACE) First is name of library for us is HelloLibrary. The keyword INTERFACE makes our target a header-only library that does not need to be compiled. cmake_minimum_required ( VERSION 3.14 ) project ( myproject VERSION 0.1.0 DESCRIPTION "A simple project" LANGUAGES CXX) # . function. A property on a source file that indicates if the source file is a header file with no associated implementation. For example, compiling the code in the source file program.cpp that includes the header files first_dir/first_include.h and second_dir/second_include.h needs the following command. I also tried supplying the INCLUDES DESTINATION X/Y/Z which has zero effect on the output structure. so, what's I do wrong? # The header only lib files are here add_subdirectory (include) # The executable code is here add_subdirectory (app) In (2) i have: I am looking for the best way to write CMake configurations for the libraries. Add header files to the project. To add a library in CMake, use the add_library () command and specify which source files should make up the library. Because the header file is meant to be included by users of the library, that means the libraries this header file depends on should be linked as PUBLIC so that the client can also see them. In our projects we use a "simple" way of yours - add_librarywith both headers and sources. This appears to do the correct thing under NT, adding them to the "Header Files" cmSourceGroup, and then into the correct place in the dsp file.