[CMake] Confusion on how find_package works.

[Robert Dailey]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Miguel A. Figueroa-Villanueva <
miguelf at ieee.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> > On 14.01.09 15:45:53, Robert Dailey wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:20 PM, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> >>
> >> > If you look at the cmake docs, then you'll find out that nothing in
> there
> >> > states that wildcards are allowed. Hence I'd assume that wildcards are
> not
> >> > supported.
> >> >
> >> > Also you only need to set one of the two for find_path to use the
> >> > directory.
> >>
> >> Well if only the CMake documentation was that reliable. There's
> information
> >> that I have found to be inaccurate or missing from the docs.
> >
> > So far I haven't found inaccurate information myself, missing yes
> > sometimes.
> >
> >> For example, the documentation for find_package() no where mentions the
> >> variable created for the COMPONENTS parameter. Looking at
> FindBoost.cmake,
> >> it appears to be in the form of <prefix>_FIND_COMPONENTS. Is this
> correct?
> >
> > Apparently yes, but no idea where I got that from :) Would be good to
> > file a bugreport at www.cmake.org as this is indeed missing in the docs.
>
> Well, you can find it in the Modules/readme.txt file. However, the
> module user doesn't need to know about the <prefix>_FIND_COMPONENTS
> variable. This is for the FindXXX module developer. Also, note that
> maybe you find inconsistent the information in the find_package
> documentation, because of old or poorly written find modules that do
> not work as they should. However, the documentation for CMake in
> general is very reliable (although sometimes missing some).
>
> In your case, it seems you need to generate the list of paths to be
> searched appropriately (no wildcard) and then use something like this:
>
> find_path(<VAR> NAMES name PATHS ${path_list} NO_DEFAULT_PATH)
>
> That is, if you don't want to search in the standard directories. Make
> sure you appropriately handle spaces in directory names and print the
> generated list of paths to see where you are searching.


What do you mean by "print the generated list of paths to see where you are
searching"? Do you mean to print ${path_list}? If not, could you explain?

You are right that there are inconsistencies in the Find modules, which is a
primary source of confusion for me. A lot of the find modules that I write
use libfind_process(), but a lot of things store found libraries in
inconsistent variables. For example, some Find modules place libraries in
<prefix>_LIBRARIES, and a few place them in <prefix>_LIBRARY (Like
FindPNG.cmake).

Thanks for your help.
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