How to consume exported static library

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14

By downloading it with file(DOWNLOAD …):

set(SOME_FILE "some.tgz")
message(STATUS "Downloading the file...")
file(DOWNLOAD "https://your.domain/data/${SOME_FILE}"
    "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/external/${SOME_FILE}"
    #SHOW_PROGRESS
    EXPECTED_HASH SHA1=b28c4cdfd737c41d1252945224aaddf97e45dc27 # should be the actual hash
    STATUS DOWNLOAD_DATASETS_RESULTS
)
list(GET DOWNLOAD_DATASETS_RESULTS 0 DOWNLOAD_STATUS_CODE)
list(GET DOWNLOAD_DATASETS_RESULTS 1 DOWNLOAD_ERROR_MESSAGE)
if(${DOWNLOAD_STATUS_CODE} EQUAL 0)
    message(STATUS "...successfully downloaded the file")
else()
    file(REMOVE "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/external/${SOME_FILE}")
    message(WARNING "...failed to download the file. ${DOWNLOAD_ERROR_MESSAGE}") # might want to use FATAL_ERROR instead of WARNING
endif()

But since it’s a .tgz archive, you’ll also need to unpack it, perhaps with a cmake -E. And then, as many have already mentioned, ideally you’d need to have a CMake config for your package (which is auto-generated if you have a proper installation procedure), otherwise you’d need to manually add its headers and binaries to your project.

I’d recommend you to use a package manager (such as vcpkg) for all this. Higher entry level, for sure, but then such tasks will get much more simpler for you going forward.

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