How to change the executable output directory for Win32 builds, in CMake?

Question

My problem is as such : I'm developing a small parser using Visual Studio 2010. I use CMake as a build configuration tool.

But I find the default executable building behaviour, inconvenient. What I want is, have my final program be located in :

E:/parsec/bin/<exe-name>.<build-type>.exe

rather than

E:/parsec/bin/<build-type>/<exe-name>.exe

How would you do that using CMake ?

Answer 1

There are several options:

1. Copy the executable after building
2. Customizing the output-directory for your executable(s)

Copy the executable after building

After a succesful build you can copy the executable (see Beginners answer), but perhaps it is nicer to use an install target:

Use the install command to specify targets (executables, libraries, headers, etc.) which will be copied to the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX directory. You can specify the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX on the commandline of cmake (or in the cmake GUI).

Customizing the output-directory for your executable(s)

Warning: It is not advised to set absolute paths directly in your cmakelists.txt.

Use set_target_properties to customize the RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

set_target_properties( yourexe PROPERTIES RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY E:/parsec/bin/ )

As an alternative, modifying the CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY allows you to specify this for all targets in the cmake project. Take care that you modify the CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY as well when you build dlls.

set( CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin )
set( CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib )

Additional info: Take a look at these questions:

• In CMake, how do I work around the Debug and Release directories Visual Studio 2010 tries to add?

• CMake : Changing name of Visual Studio and Xcode exectuables depending on configuration in a project generated by CMake

• How to not add Release or Debug to output path?

Answer 2

Most probably you will need to copy your binaries with a separate custom command which would look similar to this one:

add_custom_command(target your_target_name
          POST_BUILD
          COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy ${EXAMPLE_BIN_NAME} ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/.
)