CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cmake
Dave Mooney
Dave Mooney

Reputation: 783

How to force CMake to link to system library instead of target with same name

I have a library with the same name as a system library. Most of the executables in my project link to my own library but one executable needs to link to the system library. CMake is generating a g++ command line linking to ../foo/libfoo.a and I need it to link to -lfoo instead.

I have a structure something like this:

/CMakeLists.txt

add_directory(foo)
add_directory(program)

/foo/CMakeLists.txt

add_library(foo foo.cpp)

/program/CMakeLists.txt

add_executable(program program.cpp)
target_link_libraries(program foo)

One solution would be to change the name of my library so it doesn't conflict but I'd rather not do that because reasons. I'm looking for some CMake magic to let me tell it to use the system library.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2115

Answers (1)

Fraser
Fraser

Reputation: 78270

I'd rather not do that because reasons.

I can see your hands are tied here :) so I would recommend "finding" the system library using find_library and linking to that. If successful, find_library will yield the absolute path to the library, and if you use that variable in your subsequent target_link_libraries call, it should leave no room for ambiguity.

So in "/program/CMakeLists.txt", something like:

find_library(SystemFoo NAMES foo)
add_executable(program program.cpp)
target_link_libraries(program ${SystemFoo})

You may even want to include a few of the NO_xxx_PATH args (e.g. NO_CMAKE_ENVIRONMENT_PATH and/or NO_CMAKE_PATH) to the find_library call to reduce the number of locations CMake will search for the library.

Upvotes: 4

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