CMake post-build-event: copy compiled libraries

Question

The binary directory structure of my project is currently like this (Windows):

bin/mainProject/{Debug,Release}
bin/library1/{Debug,Release}
bin/library2/{Debug,R         


        

Answer 1

You can make this more generic by using generator expressions:

add_custom_command(
    TARGET library1 
    POST_BUILD
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy
        $<TARGET_FILE:library1>
        $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:mainProject>/$<TARGET_FILE_NAME:library1>
)

Alternative

You could - if every dependency is build within your CMake project - also just give a common output path for all executables and DLLs with something like:

set(CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/Out")

Note: The absolute path is required here because it would otherwise be relative to each targets default output path. And note that the configuration's sub-directory is appended by CMake automatically.

References

• How to copy DLL files into the same folder as the executable using CMake?