I often hit this, particularly with header-only INTERFACE libraries where I just want to pick up their defines/include paths, and then CMake ends up treating the target_link_libraries(PRIVATE as public anyway). So it would definitely be helpful to have a warning that this doesn’t do what you’d expect, and maybe a pointer to $<BUILD_INTERFACE:header_library> which seems to be the only way to actually have a private (not listed in the exported <project-config.cmake> dependency while building a static library.
From: CMake [mailto:cmake-boun...@cmake.org] On Behalf Of Marc CHEVRIER Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 8:54 AM To: Cmake Mailing List <cmake@cmake.org>; Andrew Bell <andrew.bell...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [CMake] Static Libraries and target_link_libraries It is quite inexact because a target can store many information like include directories or preprocessor definitions for example (through properties like INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES or COMPILE_DEFINITIONS). So it make sense to enable to specify link libraries to a static library using PRIVATE or PUBLIC to ensure various settings are propagated to the static library compilation step. Le 25 janv. 2019 à 15:46 +0100, Andrew Bell <andrew.bell...@gmail.com<mailto:andrew.bell...@gmail.com>>, a écrit : When creating a static library, you can still use the function "target_link_libraries" even though the static library is never linked, as such. What you're doing is creating a dependency record for cmake so that target_link_libraries of a static library are included in a link of some other target which depends on the static library. What seems confusing is that target_link_libraries accepts the keywords PUBLIC and PRIVATE as well as INTERFACE when used with a static library, since only INTERFACE really makes sense in this context. Would it be beneficial to issue a warning when someone uses PUBLIC or PRIVATE with target_link_libraries on a static library to make it clear that they may not be understanding what's going on? -- Andrew Bell andrew.bell...@gmail.com<mailto:andrew.bell...@gmail.com> -- Powered by www.kitware.com<http://www.kitware.com> Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Kitware offers various services to support the CMake community. For more information on each offering, please visit: CMake Support: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/support.html CMake Consulting: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/consulting.html CMake Training Courses: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/training.html Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: https://cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
-- Powered by www.kitware.com Please keep messages on-topic and check the CMake FAQ at: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_FAQ Kitware offers various services to support the CMake community. For more information on each offering, please visit: CMake Support: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/support.html CMake Consulting: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/consulting.html CMake Training Courses: http://cmake.org/cmake/help/training.html Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe: https://cmake.org/mailman/listinfo/cmake
