easiest way to build and install different build types for a single third-party library

Usage
1

Hi,

Using third-party open-source libraries that propose a modern cmake support (ie they can be find with find_package), how can I build and install several build types of the library.

Usually I manually had a <somelib>_ROOT or <somelib>_DIR to my path but how can I do for several build types (at least Debug and Release).

The solution should be compliant with linux or msvc makefile generator at least.

Thanks,
A.

2

The project needs some consideration of the situation. In particular, library names likely need to change per configuration and headers can’t have config-dependent bits (there’s probably some way to get around that but it’s better if it just isn’t a problem). Once that is supported, you can just install two builds (either 2 build trees with a single-config generator or one build tree with a multi-config generator) into the same prefix.

3

Instead of handling each dependency separately, I like to just install them all in the same place (e.g. with CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=dependencies/build) and then point my project to that place with CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.

Then it would be easy to just build all the dependencies in Debug mode and install them in e.g. dependencies/build-debug, and in Release mode in dependencies/build-release (using a setup like this).

That would be my preference. I hope it helps!

4

Thanks, it pointed to a possible solution.

I configured and generated the third-party lib with -DCMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX=d.
I then built (whatever the build directory) and installed in the same location than the release version.

My client code could then be built in Debug or Release, giving a single path for the third-party library. (As I said, the path was actually in an OS environment variable, set after the library installation, no path was given inside my client CMakeLists).