[CMake] Using SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES and IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES

[CHEVRIER, Marc]

I think you can fill a bug about erroneous behaviour when a list is specified with command set_target_properties for property IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES.

Another way to specify the property is to use command set_property which supports multiple values for a property:
set_property(TARGET LibD PROPERTY IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES LibA LibB)


From: CMake <cmake-bounces at cmake.org> on behalf of Saad Khattak <saadrustam at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday 14 December 2017 at 03:20
To: Craig Scott <craig.scott at crascit.com>
Cc: Cmake Mailing List <cmake at cmake.org>
Subject: Re: [CMake] Using SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES and IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES

Thanks Craig for your reply.

The issue is that both "LibA" and "LibB" have been set using "add_library(LibA STATIC IMPORTED)" and "add_library(LibB IMPORTED)" and both have some properties that are being set.

Ultimately, CMake recognizes LibA and LibB as CMake library projects, and they have their own include and link directories and other library dependencies.

The nice thing about using LibA directly is then LibD inherits all the include and link directories of LibA and LibB which then get inherited by any library or executable that includes LibD (and ultimately, the whole point of modern CMake):

set_target_properties(LibD
  PROPERTIES
    IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES LibA #cmake recognizes LibA as IMPORTED CMake libraries
)

If I use "LibA;LibB" then first, I have to manually extract the library names of the imported CMake libraries LibA and LibB. Then, I have to call "target_include_directories" and "target_link_libraries" for all dependencies of LibA and LibB, even though these dependencies were defined in their own respective CMake files when calling "add_library(LibA STATIC IMPORTED)"

set_target_properties(LibD
  PROPERTIES
    IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES "LibA;LibB" #cmake no longer recognizes LibA and LibB as IMPORTED CMake libraries
)

Regards,
Saad

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 4:32 PM Craig Scott <craig.scott at crascit.com<mailto:craig.scott at crascit.com>> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 8:22 AM, Saad Khattak <saadrustam at gmail.com<mailto:saadrustam at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi,

I have several imported libraries:

LibA
LibB
LibC

Where each imported library has been populated by (where ${LIB_NAME} is either LibA, LibB or LibC):

add_library(${LIB_NAME} STATIC IMPORTED)

And each library has the properties IMPORT_LOCATION_${CONFIGURATION} set properly:

set_target_properties(${LIB_NAME}
    PROPERTIES IMPORTED_LOCATION_DEBUG # same for release
   "location/of/library.lib"
    )

Now let's say I have another imported library LibD that depends on LibA and LibB such that any executable that uses LibD must also link with LibA and LibB. To do that, I use:

set_target_properties(LibD
  PROPERTIES
    IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES LibA LibB
  )

You probably want this instead:

set_target_properties(LibD
  PROPERTIES
    IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LIBRARIES "LibA;LibB"
)

Note that if the property value is a list, you have to provide it as a single string (i.e. "LibA;LibB" rather than LibA LibB)



--
Craig Scott
Melbourne, Australia
https://crascit.com
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