CMake find_package path to package - cmake

Is there a variable that stores the path to the found package similar to the package version?
find_package(name)
message("name version: ${name_VERSION}") #something like this but only for path to package?

If corresponded XXXConfig.cmake file has been found in find_package(XXX) call, then variable XXX_CONFIG contains absolute path to that file.
Also, there is CACHE variable XXX_DIR which contains directory with the file. Because this is a cached variable, its value can be found in CMakeCache.txt file after running cmake.
More about find_package behavior can be found in documentation.

Related

How to set a specific package path for CMakeLists.txt

My colleague wrote a CMakeLists.txt, which contains things as below:
find_package(OpenCV 3 REQUIRED
COMPONENTS
opencv_core
opencv_imgproc
opencv_imgcodecs
CONFIG
)
As the project needs these components of Opencv3, my colleague downloaded the whole Opencv3, of course, it works.
But the whole Opencv3 is too big, so I get only the necessary lib files: libopencv_core.so, libopencv_imgproc.so and libopencv_imgcodecs.so and try to replace the whole Opencv3. The three so files are put here: /opt/opencv3/.
I don't know how to tell the CMakeLists.txt to look for the components of Opencv3 at the specific path instead of the path by default.
I'm totally a newbie on writing CMakeLists.txt...
CMake find_package() finds and configure project dependencies in CMake using two modes of operation, Module and Config, as described in its documentation.
In Module mode (not your case), it looks for a Find<package>.cmake file inside CMAKE_MODULE_PATH. This file searches for header files and libraries and set the necessary CMake variables in case of success.
In your case it is using Config, as requested by the CONFIG keyword. In Config mode CMake looks for for a <name>Config.cmake file or <lowercase-name>-config.cmake.
These config files describe the version of the dependency and the location of header files and library modules.
So you should look for OpenCVConfig.cmake or opencv-config.cmake in CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or in OpenCV_DIR.
Please note that you have to set(OpenCV_DIR ...) before calling find_package().

PROTOBUF_GENERATE_CPP binary path

How does PROTOBUF_GENERATE_CPP know where to pick up the protoc binary from?
I have compiled protobuf locally and would like to point my CMakeLists.txt to the installed binary ( myfolder/protobuf-install/bin/protoc ) and not the system binary ( /usr/bin/protoc )
Normally for Boost, I would just set the BOOST_ROOT to my installed folder and it will find all the include_directories, libraries, etc.
How should it be done for Protobuf. I dont see any prefix option in the FindProtobuf.cmake.
set( Protobuf_SRC_ROOT_FOLDER "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/myfolder/")
find_package(Protobuf MODULE REQUIRED)
The error is
file STRINGS file "/usr/include/google/protobuf/stubs/common.h" cannot be read.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
CMakeLists.txt:17 (find_package)
Ofcourse, the above path is in myfolder/ and not in the system folder. But why is protobuf looking for includes in the system path, when I have explicitly declared the root path as myfolder/
Module FindProtobuf.cmake has a nice description of how to hint it with various things. E.g., hinting with executable could be performed with setting Protobuf_PROTOC_EXECUTABLE variable:
The following cache variables are also available to set or use:
...
Protobuf_PROTOC_EXECUTABLE
The protoc compiler
cmake -DProtobuf_PROTOC_EXECUTABLE=myfolder/protobuf-install/bin/protoc
Also, common CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH variable works well, see that question: Hinting Find<name>.cmake Files with a custom directory.

set PKG_CONFIG_PATH in cmake

I have built opencv locally and installed it to a local directory (not the system default ). opencv.pc is present under a folder pkgconfig in this local folder. How can I find this opencv.pc from cmake, because I want to link and include opencv files from my program.
pkg_search_module(<PREFIX> [REQUIRED] [QUIET] <MODULE> [<MODULE>]*)
does not have any parameter in which I can force the command to use a specific path (similar to HINTS with find_package()) and not the system default.
So basically .cmake works:
find_package(OpenCV REQUIRED HINTS "my/path/to/share/OpenCVConfig.cmake")
but I would like to use a opencv.pc located under my/path/to/pkgconfig/opencv.pc.
After doing some research and a hint from the #OlivierM, I found the answer.
Here are the steps:
Method I :
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH can be set to find the .pc files
set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/opencv-install")
Method II
A second method is to use the PKG_CONFIG_PATH, which is a system environment variable to look for .pc files.
set(ENV{PKG_CONFIG_PATH} "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/opencv-install/lib/pkgconfig")
Irrespective of which method you use,
For old (traditional) CMake:
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_search_module(PKG_OPENCV REQUIRED opencv) # this looks for opencv.pc file
Please note that the PKG_OPENCV variable can be named anything. Whatever it is is named, its used as a prefix. For example if you name ABCD, then include directories will be ABCD_INCLUDE_DIRS
The variable PKG_OPENCV_INCLUDE_DIRS and PKG_OPENCV_LIBRARIES contains the header files (compile stage) and libraries (link stage) respectively.
One very important thing I noticed was that the variable PKG_OPENCV_LIBRARIES just provides the libraries and not the library path during the link stage. In order to use the library path as well in one command, one has to use
PKG_OPENCV_LDFLAGS
This variable contains the library path as well as all the libraries listed in the package config file.
for examaple:
include_directories(${PKG_OPENCV_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries (FINAL_BINARY ${PKG_OPENCV_LDFLAGS})
For modern CMake:
In modern CMake we don't want variables, we want targets.
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
# this looks for opencv.pc file and creates a new target
# IMPORTED_TARGET requires CMake >= 3.6.3
pkg_search_module(PKG_OPENCV REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET opencv)
All variables will still be created for backwards compatibility, but IMPORTED_TARGET will create a target you can use in your project which will automatically propagate all of its build and usage requirements:
target_link_libraries(my_proj PRIVATE PkgConfig::PKG_OPENCV)
You could set PKG_CONFIG_PATH with the CMake line:
set(ENV{PKG_CONFIG_PATH} "$ENV{PKG_CONFIG_PATH}:/my/path/to/pkgconfig")
I did this workaround in this file
Interestingly, it seems CMake 3.1 extends PKG_CONFIG_PATH with some CMake variable see: https://cmake.org/gitweb?p=cmake.git;a=commitdiff;h=3df51470
I would propose you to call cmake with custom PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable, like below:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:my/path/to/pkgconfig cmake <some args>
Or can make PKG_CONFIG_PATH update to be permanent for whole bash session:
$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:my/path/to/pkgconfig
$ cmake <some args>

CMake find package files, how are the config files used?

I have a project that uses a 3rd party library (let's call it somelib) for which I wrote a cmake file to search for it.
This is the somelibConfig.cmake file I wrote and placed in /usr/local/lib/cmake/somelib/:
FIND_LIBRARY(somelib_LIBRARY somelib
PATHS /usr/local/lib
NO_DEFAULT_PATH
)
SET(somelib_LIBRARIES ${somelib_LIBRARY})
FIND_PATH(somelib_INCLUDE_DIR somelib.hpp
PATHS /usr/local/include/somelib
NO_DEFAULT_PATH
)
SET(somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS ${somelib_INCLUDE_DIR})
Then, if I do find_package(somelib REQUIRED) it works ok.
However, if I move and rename somelibConfig.cmake to myproject/CMakeModules/Findsomelib.cmake (this directory is added to CMAKE_MODULE_PATH), after find_package I see that variables somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS and somelib_LIBRARY are correctly filled, but somelib_FOUND is not set (and even so, find_package does not abort the compilation).
Is that *Config.cmake valid for a Find*.cmake?
How is it possible that all the variables but the *_FOUND one are set?
Why does not find_package with REQUIRED abort the compilation if *_FOUND is not set?
Config files and find-modules are fundamentally different.
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-packages.7.html
Only the developers of somelib ship a config file (if they do). If they don't, then you need to write a find-module to find somelib. Such a find-module should not be copied to /usr/local as you did. Just keep it with your project and ask the somelib developers to ship a config file instead. config files shipped by upstream is superior to find modules written by you. It doesn't matter if somelib upstream does not use cmake. Both Qt and LLVM ship config files when using non-cmake buildsystems.
One example of inferiority is that when writing a find-module you need to set the _FOUND variable. More information about writing find-modules is here:
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-developer.7.html#manual:cmake-developer%287%29
If you are searching in default library folder your parameters should not contain NO_DEFAULT_PATH.
Try this,
SET(libraryName "somelibrary.so") #in linux .a or .so
FIND_LIBRARY(LIBRARY ${libraryName}
PATHS "/usr/local/lib/cmake/somelib/"
)
MESSAGE("library path ${LIBRARY})
If this was successful, LIBRARY_FOUND will be set.
P.S: Note the quotes

CPack NSIS, generate installer for Windows

I´m trying to run packet generator within a VS project, it crashes while compiling because of the use of absolute path on installation from Targets and Files.
ABSOLUTE path INSTALL DESTINATION forbidden (by caller): ...
I checked twice and all installation directories are relative. I set quite a lot of variables as sub-folders of ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR} (which should be relative) such as:
set(INSTALL_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin)
set(LIB_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin/lib)
set(EXT_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin/ext)
...
does CMAKE/CPACK interpret those variables as absolute paths?
If so, is there a way to make CPack working properly with those variables?
How do I use CPack when sub-relative path are involved?
thanks
Ok I see, the ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR} is interpreted as an ABSOLUTE path, from there all sub-folder of it will be rejected.
To avoid this problem I surrounded the install variables in if else blocks, and if it is the case of packaging then a relative folder will be used as follows:
if(PACK)
set(INSTALL_DIR bin)
set(LIB_DIR bin/lib)
set(EXT_DIR /bin/ext)
...
else(PACK)
set(INSTALL_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin)
set(LIB_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin/lib)
set(EXT_DIR ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/bin/ext)
...
endif(PACK)
this solves it, but it is really dirty, waiting for a better function on new CPack version.
ciao
This fatal error is meant to tell you installation root should be specified at the moment when user executes the installer. I guess somewhere in your cmake config might have code like this:
INSTALL (TARGET myApp DESTINATION ${SOME_INSTALL_PATH}/bin )
If you assign SOME_INSTALL_PATH an absolute path when cmake cache is generated, you incur the CMAKE_ERROR_ON_ABSOLUTE_INSTALL_DESTINATION error, which gave you the "ABSOLUTE path INSTALL DESTINATION forbidden (by caller)" message.
To solve this problem, either always use relative path for installation DESTINATION or assign only package prefix to SOME_INSTALL_PATH variable.
For reference, following is the link to INSTALL command.
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/variable/CMAKE_ERROR_ON_ABSOLUTE_INSTALL_DESTINATION.html
There was also a similar question asked on the CMake mailing list.
http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/cmake/2013-May/054656.html