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windowscmakecpack

How do I zip an exe and a bunch of dll files together with CPack?

My CMake-based project consists of an .exe file and three .dlls when compiled with Visual Studio. I want to distribute those files together in a zip: no source code included, no fancy NSIS installers, just the four files in a handy zip archive. I know I could script the operation directly in CMake with add_custom_command, but CPack seems a better option. How can I do it?

Solution

  • If you specify the files to be installed using CMake (with install), you can easily leverage CPack to create a zip archive:

    # Specify to install your CMake targets
install(TARGETS MyExe RUNTIME CONFIGURATIONS Release)
install(TARGETS MySharedLib1 RUNTIME CONFIGURATIONS Release)
...

# Specify the CPack generator for packaging files into an archive.
set(CPACK_GENERATOR "ZIP")
# Specify to exclude the top-level directory from the archive.
set(CPACK_INCLUDE_TOPLEVEL_DIRECTORY OFF)
# Now, add CPack to your project.
include(CPack)