How to specify the output directory of a given DLL?

Question

I\'m using the following src/CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.1.0)
project(foo)
add_library(foo SHARED foo.cpp)
set_target_propertie         


        

Answer 1

Short answer

On Windows, unlike other platforms, you should use RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY instead of LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY to specify the output directory of a shared library.

Long answer

This is documented on the CMake documentation about Output Artifacts:

Runtime Output Artifacts

A runtime output artifact of a buildsystem target may be:

• The executable file (e.g. .exe) of an executable target created by the add_executable() command.
• On DLL platforms: the executable file (e.g. .dll) of a shared library target created by the add_library() command with the SHARED option. The RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY and RUNTIME_OUTPUT_NAME target properties may be used to control runtime output artifact locations and names in the build tree.

Library Output Artifacts

A library output artifact of a buildsystem target may be:

• The loadable module file (e.g. .dll or .so) of a module library target created by the add_library() command with the MODULE option.
• On non-DLL platforms: the shared library file (e.g. .so or .dylib) of a shared library target created by the add_library() command with the SHARED option. The LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY and LIBRARY_OUTPUT_NAME target properties may be used to control library output artifact locations and names in the build tree.

But why would CMake make such a difference between DLL platforms (Windows) and non-DLL platforms (macOS, Linux, etc.)?

I couldn't find a source documenting this design decision, but I believe the rationale is that Windows does not support the concept of rpath, that is, .exe files can't store internally the location of their dependent .dll files. Therefore, on Windows, .dll files are often stored in the same folder as .exe files to make sure that the DLLs are found at runtime. Instead, on Unix systems, shared library files are often stored in a separate lib folder, while application binaries are stored in a bin folder, which is not a problem because binaries can store the location of their dependencies using rpath.

In conclusion, it makes sense for cross-platform development to define both LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY and RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, like so:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.1.0)
project(foo)
add_library(foo SHARED foo.cpp)
set_target_properties(foo
    PROPERTIES
        LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/$<CONFIG>/lib
        RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/$<CONFIG>/bin
)