[CMake] Copy a input file from src folder to EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH

[Michael Hertling]

On 12/05/2011 10:30 PM, Totte Karlsson wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a tree of applications, some needing an inoput file to run. I have CMake 
> compiling all of them and moving the executables to
> EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH. In the src directories, I have some input.txt files that 
> I want to be moved to the same folder as the executables.
> How do I do that in CMake?

At configuration time:

CONFIGURE_FILE(<path>/<to>/input.txt ${EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH} COPYONLY)

Note that the destination directory, i.e. the EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH,
possibly must already exist, and refer to the EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH
variable only after it has received its value. BTW, this variable is
obsolete, use [CMAKE_]RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY[_<CONFIG>] variable/
properties instead.

At build time:

ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(input ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_if_different
    <path>/<to>/input.txt ${EXECUTABLE_OUTPUT_PATH})
ADD_DEPENDENCIES(OneOfYourExecutables input)
ADD_DEPENDENCIES(AnotherExecutable input)

or

ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND(TARGET OneOfYourExecutables
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_if_different
        <path>/<to>/input.txt $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:OneOfYourExecutables>)
ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND(TARGET AnotherExecutable
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_if_different
        <path>/<to>/input.txt $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:AnotherExecutable>)

Personally, I'd prefer the latter as it's clean and quite flexible.

Regards,

Michael