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Creating a recipe for a CMake project that finds its dependencies with find_package

I want to make a Conan package for a project I found on Github. This project is a CMake project and depends on openssl. The project finds openssl with a normal find_package.

My recipe declares the openssl dependency obviously, but where I struggle is how do I get the find_package(openssl) inside the project's CMake to find the openssl obtained by Conan?

Solution

  • You need cmake_find_package generator.

    from conans import ConanFile

class Foo(ConanFile):
    requires = "openssl/1.1.1l"
    generators = "cmake", "cmake_find_package"

    ...

    This will generate Findxxx.cmake for all your dependencies.

    If you are creating packages for your first time, I suggest you reading how to create a package from official docs, and the best practices from Conan Center Index.

    UPDATE: Using CMakeDeps

    Many improvements have been made for Conan 2.0, including a new approach for generators. The CMakeDeps is new way to go when needing xxx-config.cmake. It's not documented on getting started yet, but its reference brings a very straightforward example.