# Transitive dependencies for include directories break

**URL:** <https://discourse.cmake.org/t/transitive-dependencies-for-include-directories-break/4035>\
**Category:** Usage\
**Created:** [September 4, 2021, 8:00am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/transitive-dependencies-for-include-directories-break/4035 "2021-09-04T08:00:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![ben.boeckel](https://discourse.cmake.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/ben.boeckel)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/transitive-dependencies-for-include-directories-break/4035/2 "2021-09-04T17:06:33Z")

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They don’t break; you just can’t ask for them during the configure stage. What do you want this information for?

Edit: See also this question:

> [@Getting all PUBLIC & INTERFACE definitions including from dependencies](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/getting-all-public-interface-definitions-including-from-dependencies/3697):
>
> Hi. I have stumbled upon an use case where I think this might come handy, but I am not sure if possible in current CMake. My project specifies a target A which depends on targets B & C. For third party integration, I instruct users to specify the needed include, library paths and definitions. This day I got bitten by not specifying all definitions which created an API/ABI inconsistency (Compiled A target used different struct size than the users integration). To combat this, I was thinking of…

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/transitive-dependencies-for-include-directories-break/4035)._