Display include-directory as separate part of project in Visual Studio using CMake

Question

I am in the process of porting a big library project from Linux to Windows. Fortunately we were using CMake even before porting was even remotely on the table so not many adjustments were needed.

I figured it might be a good idea to develop the Windows parts natively on Windows for easier testing so i created a VS Studio using the CMake-gui

My project is organized like this:

lib/ # Library source code include/ mylib/ # Public installable header files

In the top CMakeLists.txt i added

include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include)

so my internal source files include the headers just like an external application would.

The problem is now the following: Visual Studio 2015 displays the public header files in the "External References"-directory among a lot of system headers. It is not obvious which header files belong to the project.

How can i make VS display the public headers separately from the system includes?

All header files you want to be explicitly listed in Visual Studio projects have to be listed as a source file in your CMake target's list of sources. Then you can group those sources/headers via the `source_group(... REGULAR_EXPRESSION ...)` command. For more details see [Keeping file hierarchy across subdirectories in CMake](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31538466/keeping-file-hierarchy-across-subdirectories-in-cmake) and [How to keep source folders hierarchy on solution explorer?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32576434/how-to-keep-source-folders-hierarchy-on-solution-explorer). — Florian, Sep 15 '15 at 12:16
If i were able to accept this comment as a correct answer, i'd do it. Thank you very much. — Richard, Sep 17 '15 at 09:17
You're welcome. Turned my comment into an answer. And I added an example implementation. — Florian, Sep 17 '15 at 16:03

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

Turning my comment into an answer

All header files you want to be explicitly listed by CMake in Visual Studio projects have to be listed as a source file in your CMake target's list of sources.

Then you can group those sources/headers via the source_group(... FILES/REGULAR_EXPRESSION ...) command.

If you have more then one target and you don't want to add those steps manually every time, you could think about grouping them into a function():

function(my_add_library _target)
    file(
        GLOB_RECURSE _header_list 
        RELATIVE "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}"
        "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include/*.h*"
    )
    add_library(${_target} ${ARGN} ${_header_list})
    target_include_directories(${_target} PRIVATE "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include")
    source_group("Public Headers" FILES ${_header_list})
endfunction(my_add_library)

Note:

I'm using file(GLOB ...) only to collect the headers, not the sources (see Why is cmake file GLOB evil?)
You could keep the include_directories() command in the main CMakeLists.txt, I just prefer the target specific target_include_directories() variant

For more details on grouping source/header files in CMake see:

And as a general reference:

What is the difference between "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}" and "." in INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES?

Display include-directory as separate part of project in Visual Studio using CMake

1 Answers1