CMake: target_link_libraries include as SYSTEM to suppress compiler warnings - cmake

Question

To suppress compiler warnings that originate from libraries I use in my application, I manually include their directories with target_include_directories(myapp SYSTEM ...) as system libraries before adding them with target_link_libraries like so:
add_executable(myapp myapp.cpp)
target_include_directories(myapp SYSTEM
PRIVATE "extern/lib/include"
)
target_link_libraries(myapp lib::lib)
However, that kind of feels hacky and will also break if the developers of lib decide to change the include path. This wouldn't be a problem if using only target_link_library but then, of course, they are included via -I and again I would get compiler warnings coming from this include.
Is there any more elegant and fail-safe way of doing this? It would be great if target_link_libraries had a SYSTEM option to tell cmake to include it as a system library.

Answer 1

I defined a function to handle this for me:
function(target_link_libraries_system target)
set(libs ${ARGN})
foreach(lib ${libs})
get_target_property(lib_include_dirs ${lib} INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
target_include_directories(${target} SYSTEM PRIVATE ${lib_include_dirs})
target_link_libraries(${target} ${lib})
endforeach(lib)
endfunction(target_link_libraries_system)
I can now call target_link_libraries_system(myapp lib::lib) and the include directories are read from the target's properties.
This can be extended to optionally specify the PUBLIC|PRIVATE|INTERFACE scope:
function(target_link_libraries_system target)
set(options PRIVATE PUBLIC INTERFACE)
cmake_parse_arguments(TLLS "${options}" "" "" ${ARGN})
foreach(op ${options})
if(TLLS_${op})
set(scope ${op})
endif()
endforeach(op)
set(libs ${TLLS_UNPARSED_ARGUMENTS})
foreach(lib ${libs})
get_target_property(lib_include_dirs ${lib} INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
if(lib_include_dirs)
if(scope)
target_include_directories(${target} SYSTEM ${scope} ${lib_include_dirs})
else()
target_include_directories(${target} SYSTEM PRIVATE ${lib_include_dirs})
endif()
else()
message("Warning: ${lib} doesn't set INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES. No include_directories set.")
endif()
if(scope)
target_link_libraries(${target} ${scope} ${lib})
else()
target_link_libraries(${target} ${lib})
endif()
endforeach()
endfunction(target_link_libraries_system)
This extended version will also print a warning if a library didn't set its INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES property.

Answer 2

I modified Sebastian's solution to include the scope.
function(target_link_libraries_system target scope)
set(libs ${ARGN})
foreach(lib ${libs})
get_target_property(lib_include_dirs ${lib} INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
target_include_directories(${target} SYSTEM ${scope} ${lib_include_dirs})
target_link_libraries(${target} ${scope} ${lib})
endforeach(lib)
endfunction(target_link_libraries_system)

Answer 3

This was asked in the CMake discourse and #ben.boeckel (CMake developer) answered:
IMPORTED targets should already have their include directories
treated as SYSTEM though. There is the NO_SYSTEM_FROM_IMPORTED target
property to disable it.

Answer 4

To start with, you haven't specified whether your target that you're linking to is IMPORTED or not. I'm assuming that it is IMPORTED because include directories for IMPORTED targets are SYSTEM by default. Note: This behaviour, can be disabled. Pre-CMake v3.25, one would use one of NO_SYSTEM_FROM_IMPORTED or IMPORTED_NO_SYSTEM. For CMake 3.25 and later, one would modify the SYSTEM property of the target.
That typically just leaves the cases of targets added via add_subdirectory, which includes those added by FetchContent in its non-find_package mode. In that case, you can see the FetchContent Q&A here, and the add_subdirectory Q&A here. In summary, for pre-CMake v3.25, use a workaround in which you copy/move the INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES target property to the INTERFACE_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES target property, and for CMake v3.25 or later, you can modify the SYSTEM target property, or the SYSTEM directory property, or use the SYSTEM argument of add_subdirectory/FetchContent_Declare.

Answer 5

Possible gotcha: If you are like me, and start every project by enabling all warnings in the toplevel directory…
# Warning level
add_compile_options(
-Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic
-Werror=switch
-Werror=return-type
-Werror=uninitialized
-Werror=format-security
-Werror=reorder
-Werror=delete-non-virtual-dtor
$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:-Werror>
)
… then, this obviously gets inherited by all subprojects (like git submodules, or what have you).
If this is the case, the solution is simple – be specific: Do it in a subdirectory, and/or use target_compile_options, for good measure:
target_compile_options(myTarget PRIVATE
...
)