Daniel Pfeifer, in his presentation "Effective CMake", makes a point, that it is advisable to avoid variable definitions as much as possible.
Now, how does one get properties into a variety of build targets. That is, for example
target_include_directories(base_IncludeFlags
INTERFACE
first/dir
second/dir
...)
defines a set of include directories. Instead of defining
the exact same include directories for target_a, target_b,
and target_c, I would like to let those targets inherit
the include directories from 'base_target', with something like
target_link_libraries(target_a PUBLIC base_IncludeFlags)
target_link_libraries(target_b PUBLIC base_IncludeFlags)
target_link_libraries(target_c PUBLIC base_IncludeFlags)
where base_IncludeFlags is shall not be a real physical target,
rather something like an abstract base class or interface.
On the other hand, I do not want to use include_directories
since this affects all targets. Is it better to use foreach?
What is the most elegant way to do this? Shall I make base_target
a library and add dependencies?
What I want is a target that is not actually physically produced, but which propagates some common properties.
Exactly for that purpose CMake has INTERFACE library - container for different properties, which are propagated when this library is linked into another target.
Example:
# Create "container" target
add_library(base_target INTERFACE)
# Add some INTERFACE properties for that target
target_include_directories(base_target INTERFACE
first/dir
second/dir)
# Some 'other_target' (library or executable) may easily consume all common properties:
target_link_libraries(other_target PUBLIC base_target)
# Now 'other_target' has aforementioned include directories too.
# Instead of PUBLIC other linking types (PRIVATE, INTERFACE) may be used.