# Expand generator expression and add double qoutes aroung include dirs

**URL:** <https://discourse.cmake.org/t/expand-generator-expression-and-add-double-qoutes-aroung-include-dirs/5669>\
**Category:** Code\
**Created:** [May 13, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/expand-generator-expression-and-add-double-qoutes-aroung-include-dirs/5669 "2022-05-13T20:54:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kerim](https://discourse.cmake.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kerim](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/kerim)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/expand-generator-expression-and-add-double-qoutes-aroung-include-dirs/5669/1 "2022-05-13T20:54:54Z")

</div>

Hi,

I need to generate file with include dirs ([taken from documentation](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-generator-expressions.7.html#string-valued-generator-expressions)):

```cmake
file(GENERATE OUTPUT ${config_file} CONTENT 
  "$<$<BOOL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:${MY_TARGET},INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES>>:
  -I$<JOIN:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:${MY_TARGET},INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES>, -I>>")

```

and the result is:

```auto
-IC:/aa -IC:/bb -IC:/c c

```

as you can see `-IC:/c c` contains spaces and this probably wont work properly if I pass it to clang.

How to modify this code so that the result would be:

```auto
-I"C:/aa" -I"C:/bb" -I"C:/c c"

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kerim](https://discourse.cmake.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kerim](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/kerim)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 10:46pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/expand-generator-expression-and-add-double-qoutes-aroung-include-dirs/5669/2 "2022-05-13T22:46:31Z")

</div>

Oh,

It seems it should be something like:

```cmake
file(GENERATE OUTPUT ${config_file} CONTENT 
  "$<$<BOOL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:${MY_TARGET},INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES>>:
  -I\"$<JOIN:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:${MY_TARGET},INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES>,\" -I\">>")

```