Provided by: cmake-data_3.27.4-1_all 
NAME
cmake-packages - CMake Packages Reference
INTRODUCTION
Packages provide dependency information to CMake based buildsystems. Packages are found
with the find_package() command. The result of using find_package() is either a set of
IMPORTED targets, or a set of variables corresponding to build-relevant information.
USING PACKAGES
CMake provides direct support for two forms of packages, Config-file Packages and
Find-module Packages. Indirect support for pkg-config packages is also provided via the
FindPkgConfig module. In all cases, the basic form of find_package() calls is the same:
find_package(Qt4 4.7.0 REQUIRED) # CMake provides a Qt4 find-module
find_package(Qt5Core 5.1.0 REQUIRED) # Qt provides a Qt5 package config file.
find_package(LibXml2 REQUIRED) # Use pkg-config via the LibXml2 find-module
In cases where it is known that a package configuration file is provided by upstream, and
only that should be used, the CONFIG keyword may be passed to find_package():
find_package(Qt5Core 5.1.0 CONFIG REQUIRED)
find_package(Qt5Gui 5.1.0 CONFIG)
Similarly, the MODULE keyword says to use only a find-module:
find_package(Qt4 4.7.0 MODULE REQUIRED)
Specifying the type of package explicitly improves the error message shown to the user if
it is not found.
Both types of packages also support specifying components of a package, either after the
REQUIRED keyword:
find_package(Qt5 5.1.0 CONFIG REQUIRED Widgets Xml Sql)
or as a separate COMPONENTS list:
find_package(Qt5 5.1.0 COMPONENTS Widgets Xml Sql)
or as a separate OPTIONAL_COMPONENTS list:
find_package(Qt5 5.1.0 COMPONENTS Widgets
OPTIONAL_COMPONENTS Xml Sql
)
Handling of COMPONENTS and OPTIONAL_COMPONENTS is defined by the package.
By setting the CMAKE_DISABLE_FIND_PACKAGE_<PackageName> variable to TRUE, the
<PackageName> package will not be searched, and will always be NOTFOUND. Likewise, setting
the CMAKE_REQUIRE_FIND_PACKAGE_<PackageName> to TRUE will make the package REQUIRED.
Config-file Packages
A config-file package is a set of files provided by upstreams for downstreams to use.
CMake searches in a number of locations for package configuration files, as described in
the find_package() documentation. The most simple way for a CMake user to tell cmake(1)
to search in a non-standard prefix for a package is to set the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH cache
variable.
Config-file packages are provided by upstream vendors as part of development packages,
that is, they belong with the header files and any other files provided to assist
downstreams in using the package.
A set of variables which provide package status information are also set automatically
when using a config-file package. The <PackageName>_FOUND variable is set to true or
false, depending on whether the package was found. The <PackageName>_DIR cache variable
is set to the location of the package configuration file.
Find-module Packages
A find module is a file with a set of rules for finding the required pieces of a
dependency, primarily header files and libraries. Typically, a find module is needed when
the upstream is not built with CMake, or is not CMake-aware enough to otherwise provide a
package configuration file. Unlike a package configuration file, it is not shipped with
upstream, but is used by downstream to find the files by guessing locations of files with
platform-specific hints.
Unlike the case of an upstream-provided package configuration file, no single point of
reference identifies the package as being found, so the <PackageName>_FOUND variable is
not automatically set by the find_package() command. It can still be expected to be set
by convention however and should be set by the author of the Find-module. Similarly there
is no <PackageName>_DIR variable, but each of the artifacts such as library locations and
header file locations provide a separate cache variable.
See the cmake-developer(7) manual for more information about creating Find-module files.
PACKAGE LAYOUT
A config-file package consists of a Package Configuration File and optionally a Package
Version File provided with the project distribution.
Package Configuration File
Consider a project Foo that installs the following files:
<prefix>/include/foo-1.2/foo.h
<prefix>/lib/foo-1.2/libfoo.a
It may also provide a CMake package configuration file:
<prefix>/lib/cmake/foo-1.2/FooConfig.cmake
with content defining IMPORTED targets, or defining variables, such as:
# ...
# (compute PREFIX relative to file location)
# ...
set(Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS ${PREFIX}/include/foo-1.2)
set(Foo_LIBRARIES ${PREFIX}/lib/foo-1.2/libfoo.a)
If another project wishes to use Foo it need only to locate the FooConfig.cmake file and
load it to get all the information it needs about package content locations. Since the
package configuration file is provided by the package installation it already knows all
the file locations.
The find_package() command may be used to search for the package configuration file. This
command constructs a set of installation prefixes and searches under each prefix in
several locations. Given the name Foo, it looks for a file called FooConfig.cmake or
foo-config.cmake. The full set of locations is specified in the find_package() command
documentation. One place it looks is:
<prefix>/lib/cmake/Foo*/
where Foo* is a case-insensitive globbing expression. In our example the globbing
expression will match <prefix>/lib/cmake/foo-1.2 and the package configuration file will
be found.
Once found, a package configuration file is immediately loaded. It, together with a
package version file, contains all the information the project needs to use the package.
Package Version File
When the find_package() command finds a candidate package configuration file it looks next
to it for a version file. The version file is loaded to test whether the package version
is an acceptable match for the version requested. If the version file claims
compatibility the configuration file is accepted. Otherwise it is ignored.
The name of the package version file must match that of the package configuration file but
has either -version or Version appended to the name before the .cmake extension. For
example, the files:
<prefix>/lib/cmake/foo-1.3/foo-config.cmake
<prefix>/lib/cmake/foo-1.3/foo-config-version.cmake
and:
<prefix>/lib/cmake/bar-4.2/BarConfig.cmake
<prefix>/lib/cmake/bar-4.2/BarConfigVersion.cmake
are each pairs of package configuration files and corresponding package version files.
When the find_package() command loads a version file it first sets the following
variables:
PACKAGE_FIND_NAME
The <PackageName>
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION
Full requested version string
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION_MAJOR
Major version if requested, else 0
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION_MINOR
Minor version if requested, else 0
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION_PATCH
Patch version if requested, else 0
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION_TWEAK
Tweak version if requested, else 0
PACKAGE_FIND_VERSION_COUNT
Number of version components, 0 to 4
The version file must use these variables to check whether it is compatible or an exact
match for the requested version and set the following variables with results:
PACKAGE_VERSION
Full provided version string
PACKAGE_VERSION_EXACT
True if version is exact match
PACKAGE_VERSION_COMPATIBLE
True if version is compatible
PACKAGE_VERSION_UNSUITABLE
True if unsuitable as any version
Version files are loaded in a nested scope so they are free to set any variables they wish
as part of their computation. The find_package command wipes out the scope when the
version file has completed and it has checked the output variables. When the version file
claims to be an acceptable match for the requested version the find_package command sets
the following variables for use by the project:
<PackageName>_VERSION
Full provided version string
<PackageName>_VERSION_MAJOR
Major version if provided, else 0
<PackageName>_VERSION_MINOR
Minor version if provided, else 0
<PackageName>_VERSION_PATCH
Patch version if provided, else 0
<PackageName>_VERSION_TWEAK
Tweak version if provided, else 0
<PackageName>_VERSION_COUNT
Number of version components, 0 to 4
The variables report the version of the package that was actually found. The
<PackageName> part of their name matches the argument given to the find_package() command.
CREATING PACKAGES
Usually, the upstream depends on CMake itself and can use some CMake facilities for
creating the package files. Consider an upstream which provides a single shared library:
project(UpstreamLib)
set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON)
set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR_IN_INTERFACE ON)
set(Upstream_VERSION 3.4.1)
include(GenerateExportHeader)
add_library(ClimbingStats SHARED climbingstats.cpp)
generate_export_header(ClimbingStats)
set_property(TARGET ClimbingStats PROPERTY VERSION ${Upstream_VERSION})
set_property(TARGET ClimbingStats PROPERTY SOVERSION 3)
set_property(TARGET ClimbingStats PROPERTY
INTERFACE_ClimbingStats_MAJOR_VERSION 3)
set_property(TARGET ClimbingStats APPEND PROPERTY
COMPATIBLE_INTERFACE_STRING ClimbingStats_MAJOR_VERSION
)
install(TARGETS ClimbingStats EXPORT ClimbingStatsTargets
LIBRARY DESTINATION lib
ARCHIVE DESTINATION lib
RUNTIME DESTINATION bin
INCLUDES DESTINATION include
)
install(
FILES
climbingstats.h
"${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/climbingstats_export.h"
DESTINATION
include
COMPONENT
Devel
)
include(CMakePackageConfigHelpers)
write_basic_package_version_file(
"${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ClimbingStats/ClimbingStatsConfigVersion.cmake"
VERSION ${Upstream_VERSION}
COMPATIBILITY AnyNewerVersion
)
export(EXPORT ClimbingStatsTargets
FILE "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ClimbingStats/ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake"
NAMESPACE Upstream::
)
configure_file(cmake/ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake
"${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ClimbingStats/ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake"
COPYONLY
)
set(ConfigPackageLocation lib/cmake/ClimbingStats)
install(EXPORT ClimbingStatsTargets
FILE
ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake
NAMESPACE
Upstream::
DESTINATION
${ConfigPackageLocation}
)
install(
FILES
cmake/ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake
"${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ClimbingStats/ClimbingStatsConfigVersion.cmake"
DESTINATION
${ConfigPackageLocation}
COMPONENT
Devel
)
The CMakePackageConfigHelpers module provides a macro for creating a simple
ConfigVersion.cmake file. This file sets the version of the package. It is read by CMake
when find_package() is called to determine the compatibility with the requested version,
and to set some version-specific variables <PackageName>_VERSION,
<PackageName>_VERSION_MAJOR, <PackageName>_VERSION_MINOR etc. The install(EXPORT) command
is used to export the targets in the ClimbingStatsTargets export-set, defined previously
by the install(TARGETS) command. This command generates the ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake
file to contain IMPORTED targets, suitable for use by downstreams and arranges to install
it to lib/cmake/ClimbingStats. The generated ClimbingStatsConfigVersion.cmake and a
cmake/ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake are installed to the same location, completing the
package.
The generated IMPORTED targets have appropriate properties set to define their usage
requirements, such as INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES, INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS and
other relevant built-in INTERFACE_ properties. The INTERFACE variant of user-defined
properties listed in COMPATIBLE_INTERFACE_STRING and other Compatible Interface Properties
are also propagated to the generated IMPORTED targets. In the above case,
ClimbingStats_MAJOR_VERSION is defined as a string which must be compatible among the
dependencies of any depender. By setting this custom defined user property in this
version and in the next version of ClimbingStats, cmake(1) will issue a diagnostic if
there is an attempt to use version 3 together with version 4. Packages can choose to
employ such a pattern if different major versions of the package are designed to be
incompatible.
A NAMESPACE with double-colons is specified when exporting the targets for installation.
This convention of double-colons gives CMake a hint that the name is an IMPORTED target
when it is used by downstreams with the target_link_libraries() command. This way, CMake
can issue a diagnostic if the package providing it has not yet been found.
In this case, when using install(TARGETS) the INCLUDES DESTINATION was specified. This
causes the IMPORTED targets to have their INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES populated with the
include directory in the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX. When the IMPORTED target is used by
downstream, it automatically consumes the entries from that property.
Creating a Package Configuration File
In this case, the ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake file could be as simple as:
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake")
As this allows downstreams to use the IMPORTED targets. If any macros should be provided
by the ClimbingStats package, they should be in a separate file which is installed to the
same location as the ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake file, and included from there.
This can also be extended to cover dependencies:
# ...
add_library(ClimbingStats SHARED climbingstats.cpp)
generate_export_header(ClimbingStats)
find_package(Stats 2.6.4 REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(ClimbingStats PUBLIC Stats::Types)
As the Stats::Types target is a PUBLIC dependency of ClimbingStats, downstreams must also
find the Stats package and link to the Stats::Types library. The Stats package should be
found in the ClimbingStatsConfig.cmake file to ensure this. The find_dependency macro
from the CMakeFindDependencyMacro helps with this by propagating whether the package is
REQUIRED, or QUIET etc. All REQUIRED dependencies of a package should be found in the
Config.cmake file:
include(CMakeFindDependencyMacro)
find_dependency(Stats 2.6.4)
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake")
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStatsMacros.cmake")
The find_dependency macro also sets ClimbingStats_FOUND to False if the dependency is not
found, along with a diagnostic that the ClimbingStats package can not be used without the
Stats package.
If COMPONENTS are specified when the downstream uses find_package(), they are listed in
the <PackageName>_FIND_COMPONENTS variable. If a particular component is non-optional,
then the <PackageName>_FIND_REQUIRED_<comp> will be true. This can be tested with logic in
the package configuration file:
include(CMakeFindDependencyMacro)
find_dependency(Stats 2.6.4)
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStatsTargets.cmake")
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStatsMacros.cmake")
set(_ClimbingStats_supported_components Plot Table)
foreach(_comp ${ClimbingStats_FIND_COMPONENTS})
if (NOT ";${_ClimbingStats_supported_components};" MATCHES ";${_comp};")
set(ClimbingStats_FOUND False)
set(ClimbingStats_NOT_FOUND_MESSAGE "Unsupported component: ${_comp}")
endif()
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/ClimbingStats${_comp}Targets.cmake")
endforeach()
Here, the ClimbingStats_NOT_FOUND_MESSAGE is set to a diagnosis that the package could not
be found because an invalid component was specified. This message variable can be set for
any case where the _FOUND variable is set to False, and will be displayed to the user.
Creating a Package Configuration File for the Build Tree
The export(EXPORT) command creates an IMPORTED targets definition file which is specific
to the build-tree, and is not relocatable. This can similarly be used with a suitable
package configuration file and package version file to define a package for the build tree
which may be used without installation. Consumers of the build tree can simply ensure
that the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH contains the build directory, or set the ClimbingStats_DIR to
<build_dir>/ClimbingStats in the cache.
Creating Relocatable Packages
A relocatable package must not reference absolute paths of files on the machine where the
package is built that will not exist on the machines where the package may be installed.
Packages created by install(EXPORT) are designed to be relocatable, using paths relative
to the location of the package itself. When defining the interface of a target for
EXPORT, keep in mind that the include directories should be specified as relative paths
which are relative to the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:
target_include_directories(tgt INTERFACE
# Wrong, not relocatable:
$<INSTALL_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/include/TgtName>
)
target_include_directories(tgt INTERFACE
# Ok, relocatable:
$<INSTALL_INTERFACE:include/TgtName>
)
The $<INSTALL_PREFIX> generator expression may be used as a placeholder for the install
prefix without resulting in a non-relocatable package. This is necessary if complex
generator expressions are used:
target_include_directories(tgt INTERFACE
# Ok, relocatable:
$<INSTALL_INTERFACE:$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:$<INSTALL_PREFIX>/include/TgtName>>
)
This also applies to paths referencing external dependencies. It is not advisable to
populate any properties which may contain paths, such as INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES and
INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES, with paths relevant to dependencies. For example, this code may
not work well for a relocatable package:
target_link_libraries(ClimbingStats INTERFACE
${Foo_LIBRARIES} ${Bar_LIBRARIES}
)
target_include_directories(ClimbingStats INTERFACE
"$<INSTALL_INTERFACE:${Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS};${Bar_INCLUDE_DIRS}>"
)
The referenced variables may contain the absolute paths to libraries and include
directories as found on the machine the package was made on. This would create a package
with hard-coded paths to dependencies and not suitable for relocation.
Ideally such dependencies should be used through their own IMPORTED targets that have
their own IMPORTED_LOCATION and usage requirement properties such as
INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES populated appropriately. Those imported targets may then be
used with the target_link_libraries() command for ClimbingStats:
target_link_libraries(ClimbingStats INTERFACE Foo::Foo Bar::Bar)
With this approach the package references its external dependencies only through the names
of IMPORTED targets. When a consumer uses the installed package, the consumer will run
the appropriate find_package() commands (via the find_dependency macro described above) to
find the dependencies and populate the imported targets with appropriate paths on their
own machine.
Unfortunately many modules shipped with CMake do not yet provide IMPORTED targets because
their development pre-dated this approach. This may improve incrementally over time.
Workarounds to create relocatable packages using such modules include:
• When building the package, specify each Foo_LIBRARY cache entry as just a library name,
e.g. -DFoo_LIBRARY=foo. This tells the corresponding find module to populate the
Foo_LIBRARIES with just foo to ask the linker to search for the library instead of
hard-coding a path.
• Or, after installing the package content but before creating the package installation
binary for redistribution, manually replace the absolute paths with placeholders for
substitution by the installation tool when the package is installed.
PACKAGE REGISTRY
CMake provides two central locations to register packages that have been built or
installed anywhere on a system:
• User Package Registry
• System Package Registry
The registries are especially useful to help projects find packages in non-standard
install locations or directly in their own build trees. A project may populate either the
user or system registry (using its own means, see below) to refer to its location. In
either case the package should store at the registered location a Package Configuration
File (<PackageName>Config.cmake) and optionally a Package Version File
(<PackageName>ConfigVersion.cmake).
The find_package() command searches the two package registries as two of the search steps
specified in its documentation. If it has sufficient permissions it also removes stale
package registry entries that refer to directories that do not exist or do not contain a
matching package configuration file.
User Package Registry
The User Package Registry is stored in a per-user location. The export(PACKAGE) command
may be used to register a project build tree in the user package registry. CMake
currently provides no interface to add install trees to the user package registry.
Installers must be manually taught to register their packages if desired.
On Windows the user package registry is stored in the Windows registry under a key in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
A <PackageName> may appear under registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kitware\CMake\Packages\<PackageName>
as a REG_SZ value, with arbitrary name, that specifies the directory containing the
package configuration file.
On UNIX platforms the user package registry is stored in the user home directory under
~/.cmake/packages. A <PackageName> may appear under the directory:
~/.cmake/packages/<PackageName>
as a file, with arbitrary name, whose content specifies the directory containing the
package configuration file.
System Package Registry
The System Package Registry is stored in a system-wide location. CMake currently provides
no interface to add to the system package registry. Installers must be manually taught to
register their packages if desired.
On Windows the system package registry is stored in the Windows registry under a key in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. A <PackageName> may appear under registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Kitware\CMake\Packages\<PackageName>
as a REG_SZ value, with arbitrary name, that specifies the directory containing the
package configuration file.
There is no system package registry on non-Windows platforms.
Disabling the Package Registry
In some cases using the Package Registries is not desirable. CMake allows one to disable
them using the following variables:
• The export(PACKAGE) command does not populate the user package registry when CMP0090 is
set to NEW unless the CMAKE_EXPORT_PACKAGE_REGISTRY variable explicitly enables it.
When CMP0090 is not set to NEW then export(PACKAGE) populates the user package registry
unless the CMAKE_EXPORT_NO_PACKAGE_REGISTRY variable explicitly disables it.
• CMAKE_FIND_USE_PACKAGE_REGISTRY disables the User Package Registry in all the
find_package() calls when set to FALSE.
• Deprecated CMAKE_FIND_PACKAGE_NO_PACKAGE_REGISTRY disables the User Package Registry in
all the find_package() calls when set to TRUE. This variable is ignored when
CMAKE_FIND_USE_PACKAGE_REGISTRY has been set.
• CMAKE_FIND_PACKAGE_NO_SYSTEM_PACKAGE_REGISTRY disables the System Package Registry in
all the find_package() calls.
Package Registry Example
A simple convention for naming package registry entries is to use content hashes. They
are deterministic and unlikely to collide (export(PACKAGE) uses this approach). The name
of an entry referencing a specific directory is simply the content hash of the directory
path itself.
If a project arranges for package registry entries to exist, such as:
> reg query HKCU\Software\Kitware\CMake\Packages\MyPackage
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kitware\CMake\Packages\MyPackage
45e7d55f13b87179bb12f907c8de6fc4 REG_SZ c:/Users/Me/Work/lib/cmake/MyPackage
7b4a9844f681c80ce93190d4e3185db9 REG_SZ c:/Users/Me/Work/MyPackage-build
or:
$ cat ~/.cmake/packages/MyPackage/7d1fb77e07ce59a81bed093bbee945bd
/home/me/work/lib/cmake/MyPackage
$ cat ~/.cmake/packages/MyPackage/f92c1db873a1937f3100706657c63e07
/home/me/work/MyPackage-build
then the CMakeLists.txt code:
find_package(MyPackage)
will search the registered locations for package configuration files
(MyPackageConfig.cmake). The search order among package registry entries for a single
package is unspecified and the entry names (hashes in this example) have no meaning.
Registered locations may contain package version files (MyPackageConfigVersion.cmake) to
tell find_package() whether a specific location is suitable for the version requested.
Package Registry Ownership
Package registry entries are individually owned by the project installations that they
reference. A package installer is responsible for adding its own entry and the
corresponding uninstaller is responsible for removing it.
The export(PACKAGE) command populates the user package registry with the location of a
project build tree. Build trees tend to be deleted by developers and have no "uninstall"
event that could trigger removal of their entries. In order to keep the registries clean
the find_package() command automatically removes stale entries it encounters if it has
sufficient permissions. CMake provides no interface to remove an entry referencing an
existing build tree once export(PACKAGE) has been invoked. However, if the project
removes its package configuration file from the build tree then the entry referencing the
location will be considered stale.
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