cmake_find_package

Warning

This is a deprecated feature. Please refer to the Migration Guidelines to find the feature that replaced this one.

The new, under development integration with CMake can be found in conan.tools.cmake. This is the integration that will become the standard one in Conan 2.0, and the below generators and integrations will be deprecated and removed. While they are recommended and usable and we will try not to break them in future releases, some breaking changes might still happen if necessary to prepare for the Conan 2.0 release.

This is the reference page for cmake_find_package generator. Go to Integrations/CMake if you want to learn how to integrate your project or recipes with CMake.

The cmake_find_package generator creates a file for each requirement specified in the conanfile.

The name of the files follow the pattern Find<PKG-NAME>.cmake. So for the asio/1.14.0 package, a Findasio.cmake file will be generated.

Variables in Find<PKG-NAME>.cmake

Being <PKG-NAME> the package name used in the reference (by default) or the one declared in cpp_info.names["cmake_find_package"] if specified:

NAME

VALUE

<PKG-NAME>_FOUND

Set to 1

<PKG-NAME>_VERSION

Package version

<PKG-NAME>_INCLUDE_DIRS

Containing all the include directories of the package

<PKG-NAME>_INCLUDES

Same as the XXX_INCLUDE_DIRS

<PKG-NAME>_DEFINITIONS

Definitions of the library

<PKG-NAME>_LIBS

Library paths to link

<PKG-NAME>_LIBRARIES

Same as <PKG-NAME>_LIBS

<PKG-NAME>_BUILD_MODULES

List of CMake module files with functionalities for consumers

<PKG-NAME>_SYSTEM_LIBS

System libraries to link

<PKG-NAME>_FRAMEWORKS

Framework names to do a find_library()

<PKG-NAME>_FRAMEWORKS_FOUND

Found frameworks to link with after find_library()

<PKG-NAME>_FRAMEWORK_DIRS

Framework directories to perform the find_library() of <PKG-NAME>_FRAMEWORKS

This file uses <PKG-NAME>_BUILD_MODULES values to include the files using the include(…) CMake directive after the targets are created. This makes functions or utilities exported by the package available for consumers just by setting find_package(<PKG-NAME>) in the CMakeLists.txt. Specify the modules that you want to be included in attribute cpp_info.build_modules in function package_info().

Moreover, this also adjusts CMAKE_MODULE_PATH and CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to the values declared by the package in cpp_info.buildirs, so modules in those directories can be found.

Targets in Find<PKG-NAME>.cmake

A target named <PKG-NAME>::<PKG-NAME> target is generated with the following properties adjusted:

  • INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES: Containing all the include directories of the package.

  • INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES: Library paths to link.

  • INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS: Definitions of the library.

The targets are transitive. So, if your project depends on a packages A and B, and at the same time A depends on C, the A target will contain automatically the properties of the C dependency, so in your CMakeLists.txt file you only need to find_package(A) and find_package(B).

Components

If a recipe uses components, the targets generated will be <PKG-NAME>::<COMP-NAME> with the following properties adjusted:

  • INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES: Containing all the include directories of the component.

  • INTERFACE_LINK_DIRECTORIES: Containing all the lib directories of the component.

  • INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES: Containing the targets to link the component to (includes component’s libraries and dependencies).

  • INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS: Containing the definitions of the component.

  • INTERFACE_COMPILE_OPTIONS: Containing the compile options of the component.

Moreover, a global target <PKG-NAME>::<PKG-NAME> will be declared with the following properties adjusted:

  • INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES: Containing all the component targets to link the global target to (includes package’s components only).

Important

Name conflicts: If the name of the global target is the same for different packages, Conan will aggregate into this global target all the components from all those different packages. This means that this global target will contain information coming from different packages. For the components themselves, a name conflict will result in one of them being inaccessible without further notice.