Copy file from source directory to binary directory using CMake

Question

I\'m trying to create a simple project on CLion. It uses CMake (I\'m new here) to generate Makefiles to build project (or some sort of it)

All I need to is transfer

Answer 1

I would suggest TARGET_FILE_DIR if you want the file to be copied to the same folder as your .exe file.

$ Directory of main file (.exe, .so.1.2, .a).

add_custom_command(
  TARGET ${PROJECT_NAME} POST_BUILD
  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy 
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/input.txt 
    $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:${PROJECT_NAME}>)

In VS, this cmake script will copy input.txt to the same file as your final exe, no matter it's debug or release.

Answer 2

The suggested configure_file is probably the easiest solution. However, it will not rerun the copy command to if you manually deleted the file from the build directory. To also handle this case, the following works for me:

add_custom_target(copy-test-makefile ALL DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/input.txt)
add_custom_command(OUTPUT ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/input.txt
                   COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/input.txt
                                                    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/input.txt
                   DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/input.txt)