cmake generator

If you are using CMake to build your project, you can use the cmake generator to define all your requirements in CMake syntax. It creates a file named conanbuildinfo.cmake that can be imported from your CMakeLists.txt.

conanfile.txt

...
[generators]
cmake

When conan install is executed, a file named conanbuildinfo.cmake is created.

You can include conanbuildinfo.cmake in your project’s CMakeLists.txt to manage your requirements. The inclusion of conanbuildinfo.cmake doesn’t alter the CMake environment at all. It simply provides CONAN_ variables and some useful macros.

Global variables approach

The simplest way to consume it would be to invoke the conan_basic_setup() macro, which will basically set global include directories, libraries directories, definitions, etc. so typically it is enough to call:

include(${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conanbuildinfo.cmake)
conan_basic_setup()

add_executable(timer timer.cpp)
target_link_libraries(timer ${CONAN_LIBS})

The conan_basic_setup() is divided into smaller macros that should be self explanatory. If you need to do something different, you can just call them individually.

Note

This approach makes all dependencies visible to all CMake targets and may also increase the build times due to unneeded include and library path components. This is particularly relevant if you have multiple targets with different dependencies. In that case, you should consider using the Targets approach.

Targets approach

For modern cmake (>=3.1.2), you can use the following approach:

include(${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conanbuildinfo.cmake)
conan_basic_setup(TARGETS)

add_executable(timer timer.cpp)
target_link_libraries(timer CONAN_PKG::Poco)

Using TARGETS as argument, conan_basic_setup() will internally call the macro conan_define_targets() which defines cmake INTERFACE IMPORTED targets, one per package. These targets, named CONAN_PKG::PackageName can be used to link against, instead of using global cmake setup.

See also

Check the CMake generator section to read more.

Note

The CMAKE_MODULE_PATH and CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH contain the paths to the self.info.builddirs of every required package. By default, the root package folder is the only one declared in builddirs. Check cpp_info for more information.