CMake install header files and maintain directory heirarchy

Question

Using cmake 2.8

I would like to maintain the directory heirarchy while copying the header files from the source to the destination directory. For example, the header file that needs to be copied are abc/1.h, def/2.h and they should also be copied in the same order in the destination directly ( set via CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX )

This is what I have tried, but it just copies the header files and not the header files inclusive parent directory name

set(HEADERS "abc/1.h;def/2.h")
install(FILES ${HEADERS} DESTINATION include)

The final output should be dest_directory/abc/1.h and dest_directory/def/2.h.

Answer 1

If you have many files in the directory for install, you may consider to install the directory with install(DIRECTORY) command flow. You may select which files in the directory should be installed with PATTERN or REGEX options:

install(DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/" # source directory
        DESTINATION "include" # target directory
        FILES_MATCHING # install only matched files
        PATTERN "*.h" # select header files
)

See CMake documentation for more information about the install(DIRECTORY). Also, it describes meaning '/' at the end of source directory.