find_path¶
A short-hand signature is:
find_path (<VAR> name1 [path1 path2 ...])
The general signature is:
find_path ( <VAR> name | NAMES name1 [name2 ...] [HINTS path1 [path2 ... ENV var]] [PATHS path1 [path2 ... ENV var]] [PATH_SUFFIXES suffix1 [suffix2 ...]] [DOC "cache documentation string"] [NO_DEFAULT_PATH] [NO_CMAKE_ENVIRONMENT_PATH] [NO_CMAKE_PATH] [NO_SYSTEM_ENVIRONMENT_PATH] [NO_CMAKE_SYSTEM_PATH] [CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_BOTH | ONLY_CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH | NO_CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH] )
This command is used to find a directory containing the named file.
A cache entry named by <VAR>
is created to store the result
of this command.
If the file in a directory is found the result is stored in the variable
and the search will not be repeated unless the variable is cleared.
If nothing is found, the result will be
<VAR>-NOTFOUND
, and the search will be attempted again the
next time find_path is invoked with the same variable.
The name of the file in a directory that
is searched for is specified by the names listed
after the NAMES argument. Additional search locations
can be specified after the PATHS argument. If ENV var is
found in the HINTS or PATHS section the environment variable var
will be read and converted from a system environment variable to
a cmake style list of paths. For example ENV PATH would be a way
to list the system path variable. The argument
after DOC will be used for the documentation string in
the cache.
PATH_SUFFIXES specifies additional subdirectories to check below
each search path.
If NO_DEFAULT_PATH is specified, then no additional paths are added to the search. If NO_DEFAULT_PATH is not specified, the search process is as follows:
Search paths specified in cmake-specific cache variables. These are intended to be used on the command line with a -DVAR=value. This can be skipped if NO_CMAKE_PATH is passed.
<prefix>/include/<arch> if CMAKE_LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE is set, and <prefix>/include for each <prefix> in CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH
CMAKE_FRAMEWORK_PATH
Search paths specified in cmake-specific environment variables. These are intended to be set in the user’s shell configuration. This can be skipped if NO_CMAKE_ENVIRONMENT_PATH is passed.
<prefix>/include/<arch> if CMAKE_LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE is set, and <prefix>/include for each <prefix> in CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH
CMAKE_FRAMEWORK_PATH
Search the paths specified by the HINTS option. These should be paths computed by system introspection, such as a hint provided by the location of another item already found. Hard-coded guesses should be specified with the PATHS option.
Search the standard system environment variables. This can be skipped if NO_SYSTEM_ENVIRONMENT_PATH is an argument.
PATH and INCLUDE
Search cmake variables defined in the Platform files for the current system. This can be skipped if NO_CMAKE_SYSTEM_PATH is passed.
<prefix>/include/<arch> if CMAKE_LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE is set, and <prefix>/include for each <prefix> in CMAKE_SYSTEM_PREFIX_PATH
CMAKE_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_PATH
CMAKE_SYSTEM_FRAMEWORK_PATH
Search the paths specified by the PATHS option or in the short-hand version of the command. These are typically hard-coded guesses.
On Darwin or systems supporting OS X Frameworks, the cmake variable CMAKE_FIND_FRAMEWORK can be set to empty or one of the following:
FIRST: Try to find frameworks before standard libraries or headers. This is the default on Darwin.
LAST: Try to find frameworks after standard libraries or headers.
ONLY: Only try to find frameworks.
NEVER: Never try to find frameworks.
On Darwin or systems supporting OS X Application Bundles, the cmake variable CMAKE_FIND_APPBUNDLE can be set to empty or one of the following:
FIRST: Try to find application bundles before standard programs. This is the default on Darwin.
LAST: Try to find application bundles after standard programs.
ONLY: Only try to find application bundles.
NEVER: Never try to find application bundles.
The CMake variable CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH
specifies one or more
directories to be prepended to all other search directories. This
effectively “re-roots” the entire search under given locations.
Paths which are descendants of the CMAKE_STAGING_PREFIX
are excluded
from this re-rooting, because that variable is always a path on the host system.
By default the CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH
is empty.
The CMAKE_SYSROOT
variable can also be used to specify exactly one
directory to use as a prefix. Setting CMAKE_SYSROOT
also has other
effects. See the documentation for that variable for more.
These variables are especially useful when cross-compiling to
point to the root directory of the target environment and CMake will
search there too. By default at first the directories listed in
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH
are searched, then the CMAKE_SYSROOT
directory is searched, and then the non-rooted directories will be
searched. The default behavior can be adjusted by setting
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE
. This behavior can be manually
overridden on a per-call basis. By using CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_BOTH
the search order will be as described above. If
NO_CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH is used then CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH
will not be
used. If ONLY_CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH is used then only the re-rooted
directories and directories below CMAKE_STAGING_PREFIX
will be searched.
The default search order is designed to be most-specific to
least-specific for common use cases.
Projects may override the order by simply calling the command
multiple times and using the NO_*
options:
find_path (<VAR> NAMES name PATHS paths... NO_DEFAULT_PATH) find_path (<VAR> NAMES name)
Once one of the calls succeeds the result variable will be set and stored in the cache so that no call will search again.
When searching for frameworks, if the file is specified as A/b.h, then the framework search will look for A.framework/Headers/b.h. If that is found the path will be set to the path to the framework. CMake will convert this to the correct -F option to include the file.