How to use CMake to install

Question

I can build my projects successfully with CMake, but can I use it to install the results?

With Make I add the target install and call that from the command line. I cannot figure out if this is possible with CMake.

The final goal is to install a static library, dynamic library and corresponding header files in a platform-portable way. How I imagine it would work: On Linux, copy to /usr/include and /usr/lib. On Windows it would probably be a user-provided folder with an include and lib folder.

The install rule suggests that something like this is possible. But how do I actually use it?

Currently I do the following:

1. mkdir build
2. cd build
3. cmake ..
4. cmake --build .

Here I would expect to do something like this:

5. cmake --install .

Answer 1

You can use the command cmake --build . --target install --config Debug for installation.

CMake's build tool mode supports further arguments that are of interest in this case. You can select the target to build by --target option, the configuration to build by --config option, and pass arguments to the underlying build tool by means of the -- option. See the documentation (Build Tool Mode) for the build-tool-mode.

In CMake 3.15 and newer, you can use the simpler cmake --install command to Install a Project:

cmake --install . --config Debug

It additionally supports --prefix, --component and --strip.

Answer 2

You can use the install command on your CMakeLists that will generate installation rules for your project. A basic example is shown bellow but check the cmake documentation if you need something more complex.

project (Test)

add_executable(test main.cpp)

install(TARGETS test DESTINATION bin)

Then after generate the makefiles you can ust type sudo make install and the test application will be installed on system bin folder.