Does cmake have something like target_link_options?

Question

You can set the COMPILE_OPTIONS on an INTERFACE library (foo) and those COMPILE_OPTIONS will also be used by the users of foo.

add_library(foo INTERFACE)
target_link_libraries(foo INTERFACE foo_1)
target_compile_options(foo INTERFACE "-DSOME_DEFINE")
add_executable(exe exe.cpp)
target_link_libraries(exe foo)

Is it possible to do something similar for LINK_FLAGS ?

@ruslo, sure. For example, a library that needs LD flag "--allow-multiple-definitions" or on windows /FORCE:MULTIPLE. — Groleo, Jul 30 '14 at 19:16
Possible duplicate of [How do I add a linker or compile flag in a CMake file?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11783932/how-do-i-add-a-linker-or-compile-flag-in-a-cmake-file) — vitaut, Dec 16 '18 at 04:39

João Neto · Answer 1 · 2019-09-17T19:59:12.257

48

CMake has a target_link_options starting from version 3.13 that does exactly that.

target_link_options(<target> [BEFORE]
  <INTERFACE|PUBLIC|PRIVATE> [items1...]
  [<INTERFACE|PUBLIC|PRIVATE> [items2...] ...])

target_link_options documentation

edited Sep 17 '19 at 19:59

answered Nov 07 '18 at 13:54

João Neto

1,732
17
28

Using 3.6.4111459 with AndroidStudio, I get: Unknown CMake command "target_link_options". – Bram Sep 17 '19 at 17:26
1

@Bram You need to upgrade the version to at least version 3.13. Check the following question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51471908/upgrade-cmake-version-installed-with-android-studio-ubuntu-18-04 – João Neto Sep 17 '19 at 19:58
As per documentation, this command cannot be used to add options for static library targets, since they do not use a linker. To add archiver or MSVC librarian flags, see the STATIC_LIBRARY_OPTIONS target property. – tmt Dec 23 '22 at 15:12

score 27 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 30 '14 at 19:55

27

According to the documentation there is no such property as INTERFACE_LINK_OPTIONS or something. Probably because INTERFACE_* properties used to describe how to use target (like avoiding violation of ODR rule or undefined references) and such options like --allow-multiple-definitions is not related to usage of a specific library (IMHO it's an indication of an error).

Anyway, for compiler like gcc you can use target_link_libraries to add linker flags too:

target_link_libraries(foo INTERFACE "-Wl,--allow-multiple-definition")

But I don't know how to do something like that for visual studio.

answered Jul 30 '14 at 19:55

that worked. For windows* I expect that replacing "-Wl,--allow-multiple-definition" with "/FORCE:multiple". * http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/70abkas3.aspx – Groleo Jul 30 '14 at 20:12
1

I think there's another use case for this. For example using LD:--undefined=symbol , or --allow-shlib-undefined. I think it's not added to CMake since it's easier to have a compiler agnostic (defines) instead of mapping the linker options to INTERFACE_* properties ? – Groleo Jul 30 '14 at 20:32
3

@ruslo: use `-` instead of `/` for cl.exe linker options, cl.exe accepts both and starting with `-` avoids the misinterpretation as library name – mgr Aug 09 '17 at 14:27
`target_link_libraries(foo PRIVATE optimized -LTCG optimized -INCREMENTAL:NO)` works with `Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017, Version 15.6.4` and CMake 3.11 – Liviu Mar 29 '18 at 12:59

score 15 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 21 '19 at 04:06

Edit: Modern CMake now provides target_link_options(), as answered here.

You could try something like this:

add_library(foo INTERFACE)
target_link_libraries(foo INTERFACE foo_1)
target_compile_options(foo INTERFACE "-DSOME_DEFINE")
add_executable(exe exe.cpp)
target_link_libraries(exe foo)

set_target_properties(foo PROPERTIES LINK_FLAGS "My lib link flags")
set_target_properties(exe PROPERTIES LINK_FLAGS "My exe link flags")

Does cmake have something like target_link_options?

3 Answers3

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