Suppose my project's CMakeLists.txt
includes foo.cmake
:
include(foo)
In foo.cmake
, i want to know the path of foo.cmake
.
How can I do that?
Note that CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR
gives the directory of the including CMakeLists.txt
, not that of the included foo.cmake
, and is thus not what I want.
Of course, foo.cmake
might be included by several projects (i.e., by several CMakeLists.txt
files).
People have reported seemingly contradictory facts about how CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR behaves. Now I know the reason for the confusion:
First, in my Linux environment:
$ cd /path/to/home
$ mkdir cmake-test
$ cd cmake-test
$ mkdir source
$ mkdir source/subdirectory
$ mkdir build
I create these two files:
$ cat source/CMakeLists.txt
include(subdirectory/foo.cmake)
$ cat source/subdirectory/foo.cmake
message("CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR is ${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}")
So the file structure is as:
.
├── build
└── source
├── CMakeLists.txt
└── subdirectory
└── foo.cmake
CMake works as reported by Fraser and Robert Dailey:
$ cd build
$ cmake ../source
CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR is /path/to/home/cmake-test/source/subdirectory
[...]
However, I add a function to foo.cmake, which I call from CMakeLists.txt:
$ cat ../source/subdirectory/foo.cmake
message("CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR is ${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}")
function(bar)
message("CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR in bar() is ${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}")
endfunction()
$ cat ../source/CMakeLists.txt
include(subdirectory/foo.cmake)
bar()
Then:
$ cmake ../source
CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR is /path/to/home/cmake-test/source/subdirectory
CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR in bar() is /path/to/home/cmake-test/source
[...]
So, the value of CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR in foo.cmake is not the same at the time foo.cmake is included and when bar() is called. This is according to the specification of CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR.
Here is one possible solution for accessing the directory of foo.cmake from within bar():
$ cat ../source/subdirectory/foo.cmake
set(DIR_OF_FOO_CMAKE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR})
function(bar)
message("DIR_OF_FOO_CMAKE in bar() is ${DIR_OF_FOO_CMAKE}")
endfunction()
after which I get the behavior I was looking for:
$ cmake ../source
DIR_OF_FOO_CMAKE in bar() is /path/to/home/cmake-test/source/subdirectory
[...]