How to reuse cmake install for package() method

It is possible that your project’s CMakeLists.txt has already defined some functionality that extracts the artifacts (headers, libraries, binaries) from the build and source folder to a predetermined place.

The conan package() method does exactly that: it defines which files have to be copied from the build folder to the package folder.

If you want to reuse that functionality, you can do it with cmake.

Invoke cmake with CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX using the package_folder variable. If the cmake install target correctly copies all the required libraries, headers, etc. to the package_folder, then the package() method is not required.

def build(self):
    cmake = CMake(self)
    cmake.configure()
    cmake.build()
    cmake.install()
    # equivalent to
    # args += ['-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="%s"' % self.package_folder]
    # self.run('cmake "%s/src" %s %s'
    #          % (self.source_folder, cmake.command_line, ' '.join( args ) ) )
    # self.run("cmake --build . --target install %s" % cmake.build_config)

def package(self):
    # nothing to do here now

The package_info() method is still necessary, as there is no possible way to automatically extract the information of the necessary libraries, defines and flags for different build configurations from the cmake install.