How to Properly Configure Header Include Directories in CMake?

Configuring Header Include Directories with CMake

Understanding CMake's Header Dependency Management

CMake initially treats header files outside of the project directory as external resources. This behavior can lead to dependency tracking issues in generated projects.

Solution: Designating Include Directories

To properly include headers, two steps are necessary:

1. Adding the Include Directory:

   • Use target_include_directories for recent CMake versions (e.g., 3.0 ):

     target_include_directories(test PRIVATE ${YOUR_DIRECTORY})

   • For older CMake versions (e.g., 2.8.10 or before, without target_include_directories support):

     include_directories(${YOUR_DIRECTORY})

2. Including Header Files in Target Source List:

   To track dependencies, add header files to the source list for the target:

   set(SOURCES file.cpp file2.cpp ${YOUR_DIRECTORY}/file1.h ${YOUR_DIRECTORY}/file2.h)
   add_executable(test ${SOURCES})

Example: Linking Headers to Multiple Targets

To share header files across multiple targets:

set(HEADER_FILES ${YOUR_DIRECTORY}/file1.h ${YOUR_DIRECTORY}/file2.h)

add_library(mylib libsrc.cpp ${HEADER_FILES})
target_include_directories(mylib PRIVATE ${YOUR_DIRECTORY})
add_executable(myexec execfile.cpp ${HEADER_FILES})
target_include_directories(myexec PRIVATE ${YOUR_DIRECTORY})

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