CMake's equivalent to Visual Studio's Property Sheets (.vsprops) - c++

Question

I'm trying to migrate from Visual Studio towards Jetbrains' (awesome) CLion IDE which uses CMake to organize the projects.
Until now, the transition has been smooth: creating CMake projects and importing them into CLion is easy, and I can begin coding on one plateform then continue on another one without problems.
However, one aspect of Visual Studio that I couldn't find an equivalent to in CMake is property sheets: I use them mainly for holding the include directories' paths and the linking libs for libraries (i.e. one .vsprops file for each library, e.g. OpenCV.vsprops, Boost.vsprops, etc.).
This way, in VS, I could share a library's .vsprops file between different projects without having to configure the paths/libs each time.
Does CMake have a similar mechanism to Visual Studio's property sheets ? How is it possible to store a library's includes/libs in a CMake-parsable file then "import" it in CMakeLists.txt in order to link against the library ?
Basically, what I want to do is:
Create a "cmake property sheet" (for lack of a better name) for a given library.
Then, in CMakeLists.txt, write something like link_target_to_libs(myTarget "path/to/propertySheet1" "path/to/propertySheet2" ...) .

Answer 1

In CMake, libraries can export a package with IMPORTED targets which other buildsystems import using find_package:
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.1/manual/cmake-packages.7.html
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-buildsystem.7.html
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-buildsystem.7.html#imported-targets
Instead of 'linking to property sheets', you link to the IMPORTED targets.
target_link_libraries(myTarget Dep1::Dep1 Dep2::Dep2)
Not all libraries create IMPORTED targets, and not all provide cmake config-file packages. In those cases (including OpenCV and Boost), CMake provides find modules:
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-developer.7.html#find-modules
which you use with find_package and link to the contents of variables.

Answer 2

Since I really want to make the libraries' inclusion/linking into a one-line command, and as far as my (basic) knowledge of CMake goes, I think that some compromise should be made -- mainly sharing the target name's variable between CMakeLists.txt and the "property sheets". So this is my solution... until someone proposes a simpler/cleaner one:
A CMake property sheet is a .cmake text file,
A well-known variable name --TARGET-- designates the target (i.e. the first argument of add_executable()),
Aside from library-specific commands, a .cmake file contains a call to target_include_directories(${TARGET} PRIVATE ${PATH_TO_INCLUDE_DIR}) and target_link_libraries(${TARGET} ${LIST_OF_LIBS}),
In order to use/link against a library, call include("path/to/.cmake") in CMakeLists.txt.
I have successfully built and executed a simple program that uses X11 and OpenCV with the following files:
x11.cmake
target_include_directories(${TARGET} PRIVATE "/usr/include/X11")
target_link_libraries(${TARGET} "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so")
opencv.cmake
# OpenCV-specific stuff
set(OpenCV_DIR "/PATH/TO/OPENCV/INSTALL/DIR/share/OpenCV") # path to OpenCVConfig.cmake
find_package(OpenCV REQUIRED)
# include path
target_include_directories(${TARGET} PRIVATE ${OpenCV_INCLUDE_DIRS})
# linking libs
target_link_libraries(${TARGET} opencv_world opencv_ts)
CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.4)
project(hello_clion)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11")
## hello-clion ##############################
# make a new target name
set(TARGET hello-clion)
# find sources
file(GLOB_RECURSE SOURCE_FILES "src/*.cpp" "src/*.hpp")
# declare a target
add_executable(${TARGET} ${SOURCE_FILES})
# link the libraries (to the last-declared ${TARGET}, which should be the last-added executable)
include("x11.cmake")
include("opencv.cmake")
#############################################
main.cpp
#include <cstdio>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <cstring>
#include <thread>
#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>
#include <Xlib.h>
int main_x11()
{
// adapted from: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Window_creation/X11#Xlib
}
int main_ocv()
{
// adapted from: http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/display_image/display_image.html#source-code
}
int main()
{
using namespace std;
thread tocv(main_ocv);
thread tx11(main_x11);
tocv.join();
tx11.join();
return 0;
}
Now, each time I want to use OpenCV in a project/program, I just have to put include("opencv.cmake") in the corresponding CMakeLists.txt.

Answer 3

This seems to work great, but there could certainly be problems I haven't discovered. (I was worried multiple macros adding the same target_link_libraries would cause "already defined" linking errors , but at least g++ 5.1.0 handles being given the same library name multiple times without error.)
In root CMakeLists.txt, BEFORE add_subdirectory() calls or globs, include:
macro(USES_WX)
include_directories(SYSTEM /usr/local/include/wx-3.0)
include_directories(SYSTEM /usr/local/lib/wx/include/gtk3-unicode-3.0)
link_directories(/usr/local/lib)
add_definitions(-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -DWXUSINGDLL -D__WXGTK__ -pthread)
target_link_libraries(${TARGET} pthread wx_gtk3u_xrc-3.0 wx_gtk3u_html-3.0 wx_gtk3u_qa-3.0 wx_gtk3u_adv-3.0 wx_gtk3u_core-3.0 wx_baseu_xml-3.0 wx_baseu_net-3.0 wx_baseu-3.0)
endmacro()
(You can make the macro more fancy, like checking for if CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is "Debug" or "Release" to link to the appropriate libraries, vary preprocessor definitions, etc. See http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/command/if.html)
And have your project's CMakeLists.txt be like this:
set(TARGET myProgramName)
add_executable(${TARGET} myProgramName.cpp)
USES_WX()
^^ The macro call MUST be after add_executable()
And, if you want multiple target support, modify the line in the root CMakeLists.txt section shown above to:
...
target_link_libraries(${ARGV0} pthread wx_gtk3u_xrc-3.0 ...)
...
And have your project's CMakeLists.txt be like this (less lines, but more chance for error):
add_executable(myProgramName myProgramName.cpp)
USES_WX(myProgramName)