README.md

The purpose of this repository is to show an example on how to build CMake Interface Targets. It is broken up into three examples:

Example 1 - Build Scripts

The first example demonstrates the most basic way of building source code. i.e. some files and a build script that manually specifies inclusion and library paths. This example also builds the actual library that subsequent examples assume to exist. (Therefore, run this first.)

Building:

cd example-01-basic_build
./build.sh

Example 2 - Basic CMake

The second example sets the project up with CMake. The CMake code here also manually species the include and linking paths, making it little better than the build script.

Building:

cd example-02-basic_cmake
mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake -GNinja ..
ninja

This example makes explicit use of link_directories and target_include_directories in the make CMakeLists.txt file to specify exactly how ExtraLib should be included. Note, this would have to be done in a similar way for all executables in this project that required ExtraLib.

Example 3 - Find Scripts

The third example builds on the second example where a Find script script is written that prepares an Extra interface target such that the main CMakeLists.txt file can simply add ExtraLib along with all its settings and dependencies as one target.

Building:

cd example-03-cmake
mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake -GNinja ..
ninja

The advantage of the interface target is that the Find script has total control over how the library should be included, or in other words, the details of the dependency are completely encapsulated in the Find script.