# How to compile a single source file from list of sources set in a static library
**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957
**Category:** Usage
**Created:** [April 18, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957 "2025-04-18T10:42:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@siddmohsin](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/siddmohsin)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/1 "2025-04-18T10:42:38Z")
Let’s say I have the following CMakeLists.txt
cmake\_minimum\_required(VERSION 3.22.0)
project(TallyWorld DESCRIPTION “” LANGUAGES CXX)
add\_library(LibraryA STATIC
“POC/file1.cpp”
“POC/file2.cpp”
“POC/file3.cpp” )
Now to build LibraryA target I can use below command to build
cmake --build --preset= --target Library1
What I am looking a similar way to build file1.cpp,file2.cpp,etc. Something like below
cmake --build --preset= --target file1
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Mohsin Siddiqui
---
### Author:  [@AnthonyD973](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/AnthonyD973)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/2 "2025-04-22T22:01:06Z")
AFAIK CMake isn’t meant to do that. Build systems generally care about build _targets_ (like a library or executable), not so much individual files.
If you _really_, _really_ need to do that, you could always make a single library (e.g. object library) per cpp file, although 1) I’m not sure what build speed results you would get if you were to do that on a large project, 2) if two files anywhere in your project have the same name, even inside different libraries, you could easily fall into a case where you have two targets with the same name, and then CMake will complain, and 3) you will need to repeat target-specific properties like `target_compile_features()` for _each_ of these libraries, which essentially means you’ll need a function to set them, which in turn will quickly make your CMake code hard to read.
```cmake
# Untested, fix issues if any!
add_library(file1-lib OBJECT file1.cpp)
setup_tally_world_lib(file1-lib)
# ...
add_library(fileN-lib OBJECT fileN.cpp)
setup_tally_world_lib(fileN-lib)
add_library(tally-world-lib)
target_link_libraries(tally-world-lib
PUBLIC
file1-lib
file2-lib
# ...
fileN-lib)
```
You could then run the appropriate target using the `--target` CLI option. As a final note, I remember reading somewhere in CMake’s doc that (for XCode only I think?) you can’t have a library with no sources as `tally-world-lib` does above.
Personally this seems like _way_ too much badness for something you probably don’t need!
---
### Author:  [@Angew](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/Angew)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2025, 8:01am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/3 "2025-04-23T08:01:05Z")
The makefile generators generate make targets for individual source files. For example, this:
```auto
add_executable(App src1.cpp src2.cpp)
```
will allow you to run any of the following commands:
```auto
> make src1.o
> make src2.o
> make App
```
Note that these targets are only generated in the makefile for the directory which defines the actual library/executable, not in any parent directory makefiles. So if your target is in an `add_subdirectory()`, you have to `cd` into the corresponding binary directory to have access to the `*.o` make targets. You can run `make help` in a directory to see the list of make targets available there; the `*.o` targets will be there if they’re present.
I don’t know whether any other generators offer similar functionality.
---
### Author:  [@siddmohsin](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/siddmohsin)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2025, 11:07am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/4 "2025-04-23T11:07:26Z")
Yeah… This is where I also reached but agree it seems to much of complexing build system. Let me express exact reasoning why we want to do this way and may be I can get some better way to handle the same. So we are using Visual Studio 2022 as an IDE and what we want that opened cpp/kotlin/swift source, on right click I can give a option to compile a single file so that I dont have to compile whole library to see if my changes does not have any syntax error.
Please let me know if you have any idea to handle above .
---
### Author:  [@siddmohsin](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/siddmohsin)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2025, 11:08am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/5 "2025-04-23T11:08:12Z")
No, its only there with Makefile and Ninja. XCode and Visual Studio Generator lacks it
---
### Author:  [@Albrecht-S](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/Albrecht-S)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2025, 1:26pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-compile-a-single-source-file-from-list-of-sources-set-in-a-static-library/13957/6 "2025-05-29T13:26:02Z")
I know, my reply is late, but anyway… If you only want “to see if my (your) changes does not have any syntax error” I assume that you changed only this file and built the library previously. Then you can build the library target as you wrote above and your build system will only compile the changed file (and insert it into the static lib, of course). This is true at least for source files; if you changed a header file, then it’s likely that more files need to be compiled, but that should be acceptable as well.
Did I miss anything?