INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT

Added in version 3.24.

List of libraries that consumers of this library should treat as direct link dependencies.

This target property may be set to include items in a dependent target's final set of direct link dependencies. See the INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target property to exclude items.

The initial set of a dependent target's direct link dependencies is specified by its LINK_LIBRARIES target property. Indirect link dependencies are specified by the transitive closure of the direct link dependencies' INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES properties. Any link dependency may specify additional direct link dependencies using the INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT target property. The set of direct link dependencies is then filtered to exclude items named by any dependency's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target property.

The value of INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT may use generator expressions.

Note

The INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT target property is intended for advanced use cases such as injection of static plugins into a consuming executable. It should not be used as a substitute for organizing normal calls to target_link_libraries().

Direct Link Dependencies as Usage Requirements

The INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT and INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target properties are usage requirements. Their effects propagate to dependent targets transitively, and can therefore affect the direct link dependencies of every target in a chain of dependent libraries. Whenever some library target X links to another library target Y whose direct or transitive usage requirements contain INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT or INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE, the properties may affect X's list of direct link dependencies:

• If X is a shared library or executable, its dependencies are linked. They also affect the usage requirements with which X's sources are compiled.

• If X is a static library or object library, it does not actually link, so its dependencies at most affect the usage requirements with which X's sources are compiled.

The properties may also affect the list of direct link dependencies on X's dependents:

• If X links Y publicly:

  target_link_libraries(X PUBLIC Y)
  

  then Y is placed in X's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES, so Y's usage requirements, including INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT, INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE, and the usage requirements declared by the direct link dependencies they add, are propagated to X's dependents.

• If X is a static library or object library, and links Y privately:

  target_link_libraries(X PRIVATE Y)
  

  then $<LINK_ONLY:Y> is placed in X's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES. Y's linking requirements, including INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT, INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE, and the transitive link dependencies declared by the direct link dependencies they add, are propagated to X's dependents. However, Y's non-linking usage requirements are blocked by the LINK_ONLY generator expression, and are not propagated to X's dependents.

• If X is a shared library or executable, and links Y privately:

  target_link_libraries(X PRIVATE Y)
  

  then Y is not placed in X's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES, so Y's usage requirements, even INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT and INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE, are not propagated to X's dependents.

• In all cases, the content of X's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES is not affected by Y's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT or INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE.

One may limit the effects of INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT and INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE to a subset of dependent targets by using the TARGET_PROPERTY generator expression. For example, to limit the effects to executable targets, use an entry of the form:

"$<$<STREQUAL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:TYPE>,EXECUTABLE>:...>"

Similarly, to limit the effects to specific targets, use an entry of the form:

"$<$<BOOL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:USE_IT>>:...>"

This entry will only affect targets that set their USE_IT target property to a true value.

Direct Link Dependency Ordering

The list of direct link dependencies for a target is computed from an initial ordered list in its LINK_LIBRARIES target property. For each item, additional direct link dependencies are discovered from its direct and transitive INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT usage requirements. Each discovered item is injected before the item that specified it. However, a discovered item is added at most once, and only if it did not appear anywhere in the initial list. This gives LINK_LIBRARIES control over ordering of those direct link dependencies that it explicitly specifies.

Once all direct link dependencies have been collected, items named by all of their INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE usage requirements are removed from the final list. This does not affect the order of the items that remain.

Example: Static Plugins

Consider a static library Foo that provides a static plugin FooPlugin to consuming application executables, where the implementation of the plugin depends on Foo and other things. In this case, the application should link to FooPlugin directly, before Foo. However, the application author only knows about Foo. We can express this as follows:

# Core library used by other components.
add_library(Core STATIC core.cpp)

# Foo is a static library for use by applications.
# Implementation of Foo depends on Core.
add_library(Foo STATIC foo.cpp foo_plugin_helper.cpp)
target_link_libraries(Foo PRIVATE Core)

# Extra parts of Foo for use by its static plugins.
# Implementation of Foo's extra parts depends on both Core and Foo.
add_library(FooExtras STATIC foo_extras.cpp)
target_link_libraries(FooExtras PRIVATE Core Foo)

# The Foo library has an associated static plugin
# that should be linked into the final executable.
# Implementation of the plugin depends on Core, Foo, and FooExtras.
add_library(FooPlugin STATIC foo_plugin.cpp)
target_link_libraries(FooPlugin PRIVATE Core Foo FooExtras)

# An app that links Foo should link Foo's plugin directly.
set_property(TARGET Foo PROPERTY INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT FooPlugin)

# An app does not need to link Foo directly because the plugin links it.
set_property(TARGET Foo PROPERTY INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE Foo)

An application app only needs to specify that it links to Foo:

add_executable(app main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(app PRIVATE Foo)

The INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT target property on Foo tells CMake to pretend that app also links directly to FooPlugin. The INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target property on Foo tells CMake to pretend that app did not link directly to Foo. Instead, Foo will be linked as a dependency of FooPlugin. The final link line for app will link the libraries in the following order:

• FooPlugin as a direct link dependency of app (via Foo's usage requirements).

• FooExtras as a dependency of FooPlugin.

• Foo as a dependency of FooPlugin and FooExtras.

• Core as a dependency of FooPlugin, FooExtras, and Foo.

Note that without the INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target property, Foo would be linked twice: once as a direct dependency of app, and once as a dependency of FooPlugin.

Example: Opt-In Static Plugins

In the above Example: Static Plugins, the app executable specifies that it links directly to Foo. In a real application, there might be an intermediate library:

add_library(app_impl STATIC app_impl.cpp)
target_link_libraries(app_impl PRIVATE Foo)

add_executable(app main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(app PRIVATE app_impl)

In this case we do not want Foo's INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT and INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE target properties to affect the direct dependencies of app_impl. To avoid this, we can revise the property values to make their effects opt-in:

# An app that links Foo should link Foo's plugin directly.
set_property(TARGET Foo PROPERTY INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT
  "$<$<BOOL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:FOO_STATIC_PLUGINS>>:FooPlugin>"
)

# An app does not need to link Foo directly because the plugin links it.
set_property(TARGET Foo PROPERTY INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES_DIRECT_EXCLUDE
  "$<$<BOOL:$<TARGET_PROPERTY:FOO_STATIC_PLUGINS>>:Foo>"
)

Now, the app executable can opt-in to get Foo's plugin(s):

set_property(TARGET app PROPERTY FOO_STATIC_PLUGINS 1)

The final link line for app will now link the libraries in the following order:

• FooPlugin as a direct link dependency of app (via Foo's usage requirements).

• app_impl as a direct link dependency of app.

• FooExtras as a dependency of FooPlugin.

• Foo as a dependency of app_impl, FooPlugin, and FooExtras.

• Core as a dependency of FooPlugin, FooExtras, and Foo.