CMake build static vs. shared libs

[KerstinKeller]

I have seen that the CMake build is now supported and it exports its targets with a config, which is great.
However, I am a little confused as on how you're handling static vs dynamic libs.

From my understanding, with a CMake build, you specify BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON or BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF and your library will be build accordingly. However, your configuration allows to build both, but exports them with different names (tinyxml2 vs tinyxml2_static).

I am also developing a library, which uses tinyxml2, but in my CMakeLists.txt files, I don't want to care about if someone has installed the static or non-static version of tinyxml2.
I would have to do something like

find_package(tinyxml2 REQUIRED)
if (TARGET tinyxml2)
target_link_libraries(my_lib PRIVATE tinyxml2)
else()
target_link_libraries(my_lib PRIVATE tinyxml2_static)
endif()

So basically this is not a bug or anything, but I am just wondering if you're willing to reconsider this design.

On a sidenote, many libraries chose to export their libraries to a namespace, e.g.
export(EXPORT tinyxml2 NAMESPACE tinyxml2) to later be referenced as tinyxml2::tinyxml2. I guess as tinyxml2 only has one component, it is not strictly necessary, but it could be helpful in seeing that you're referencing an installed library.

[leethomason]

I should probably be more involved in all the build options than I am, and I hope someone else can contribute an answer. But it's always my hope that including source will work.

[jasjuang]

@KerstinKeller Using namespace for export is definitely the modern approach but it might break all current builds. Do you plan to submit a PR for this?

@leethomason I can do this sometime later if you don't mind require everyone who use tinyxml2 to change target link to tinyxml2::tinyxml2 from target link to tinyxml2 in their downstream CMakeLists.

[johnb003]

You can have both actually.

add_library(tinyxml2::tinyxml2 ALIAS tinyxml2)

FWIW: Yes! Please add the namespace. This is currently non-idiomatic. Also here's some reasons:

• With namespace targets like Foo::Foo, if it's missing the config will give you an error rather than just silently adding -lFoo
• The namespace is a nice way to tell when a library is imported vs part of the project, as most people do follow that standard for imported targets.

[lsolanka]

Would this pull request originally intended for Hunter package manager be of interest? hunter-packages#2

It essentially does what you are suggesting (+introduces CMakePackageConfigHelpers to generate the config file). I just didn't have time to submit it here as I was working on other stuff.

It could pretty much be applied out of the box with minimal modifications.

Of course downstream projects would no longer be able to use tinyxml2_static.

[jasjuang]

@lsolanka The PR hunter-packages#2 looks great to me too.