[CMake] CheckLibraryExists behaviour with different compilers

[Nils Gladitz]

On 04/20/2015 02:54 PM, victor sv wrote:
> Hello again,
>
> Sometimes we don't have control on external libraries compilation and we
> don't know which compiler was used to generate external libraries
>
> now my questions is,Is there a CMake-standard-way to proceed in these cases?

Proper shared libraries record their own load dependencies but with 
static libraries there is no generic way to record or retrieve the 
required link information.

The build process of the library might export that information in some 
form through e.g. pkg-config (.pc) files, custom configuration scripts 
(e.g. foo-config), libtool library files (.la) or cmake target exports 
with package configuration files.

If the library does not happen to provide a (working) cmake package 
configuration file the next best thing is probably writing a (or using 
an existing) cmake find module.

The find module could then try to guess static library dependencies 
based on information provided elsewhere (e.g. by querying pkg-config or 
parsing configuration files) or by falling back to manual user input.

Nils