[CMake] target_link_libraries: prefer static to dynamic

[Michael Wild]

On 27. Dec, 2009, at 20:41 , Pau Garcia i Quiles wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Michael Wild <themiwi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 26. Dec, 2009, at 17:53 , Pau Garcia i Quiles wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I think this has already been discussed and the answer is negative but
>>> still: when I do target_link_libraries to an external library (for
>>> instance, my application needs to link to sqlite), is it possible to
>>> tell CMake to link to the static version of sqlite instead of the
>>> dynamic version?
>>> 
>>> For instance, in Debian the libsqlite3-dev package contains both the
>>> static and the dynamic versions of the library and they have the very
>>> same name:
>>> 
>>> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.a
>>> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.so
>>> 
>>> ( http://packages.debian.org/sid/i386/libsqlite3-dev/filelist )
>>> 
>>> Is this feature going to be implemented any time soon? I have not
>>> looked at the sources for target_link_libraries but at first sight it
>>> doesn't look difficult to add  something like
>>> "static;optimized;libsqlite3.a;dynamic;optimized;libsqlite3.so".
>>> There's the problem of find_library on Windows confusing the .lib as
>>> the import for a .dll with a static .lib library but IIRC it's
>>> possible to detect that.
>> 
>> Perhaps a variable CMAKE_FIND_STATIC with the possible values "FIRST" "LAST", "ONLY" and "NEVER, similar to CMAKE_FIND_FRAMEWORK, would fit the bill?
> 
> No, it won't. If my application links to two libraries, I may want to
> link statically to libA but dynamically to libB.

But then, on Debian a static version of sqlite3 is available, but not on Mac OS X (that is, without compiling it yourself). What should be the behavior there? Perhaps this could be expanded to optional options FIND_STATIC of find_library and find_package? Besides, the variable IS enough:

set(CMAKE_FIND_STATIC FIRST)
find_library(SQLITE_LIBRARY sqlite3)

set(CMAKE_FIND_STATIC LAST)
find_library(OTHER_LIBRARY other)

Michael