why CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY doesn't work?

Question

I want to build the static library on a bin subdir, but cmake seems not not doing what I want. Here is the Cmake file I wrote.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.3)
project(FancyLogger)

set(SOURCE_FILES FancyLogger.cpp)

set(CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/bin)

add_library(FancyLogger STATIC ${SOURCE_FILES})

I made a build subdir, and ran cmake .. and make in this sub directory, hoping that the output static library will be generated on the bin library.

But the output remains in the build directory, Why?

Here is my file tree

===== |

| FancyLogger.cpp

| CMakeLists.txt

| /build

| /bin

The practice is to install static libs in the lib dir, not the bin dir. — Johan Boulé
– Johan Boulé, Commented Feb 10, 2023 at 1:19

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:17:00Z

27

For static libraries you have to set the CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, not the CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY.

So you will have:

set(CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/bin)

See how do I make cmake output into a 'bin' dir?

By the way, it's probably not a good idea to create subfolders within the source directory, especially in an automated way.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:17

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 18, 2016 at 16:33

Antonio

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3 Comments

Dimitri Merejkowsky Over a year ago

I agree. You should use ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/bin or ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin instead

Dblock247 Over a year ago

@DimitriMerejkowsky why is that not a good idea. Your saying the following is bad? set(CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/lib).

Dimitri Merejkowsky Over a year ago

Yes. For instance, if you want to compile for linux and cross-compile for android, you can have a build/linux and a build/android folder, and thus your library should be in bulid/linux/lib or build/android/lib so you don't mix binaries built for different operating systems in the same directory.

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