Configure generators for binary installers and source packages.
The CPack module generates the configuration files CPackConfig.cmake
and CPackSourceConfig.cmake
. They are intended for use in a subsequent
run of the cpack
program where they steer the generation
of installers or/and source packages.
Depending on the CMake generator, the CPack module may also add two new build
targets, package
and package_source
. See the packaging targets
section below for details.
The generated binary installers will contain all files that have been installed
via CMake's install()
command (and the deprecated commands
install_files()
, install_programs()
, and
install_targets()
). Note that the DESTINATION
option of the
install()
command must be a relative path; otherwise installed files
are ignored by CPack.
Certain kinds of binary installers can be configured such that users can select
individual application components to install. See the CPackComponent
module for further details.
Source packages (configured through CPackSourceConfig.cmake
and generated
by the CPack Archive Generator
) will contain all source files in
the project directory except those specified in
CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES
.
The CPACK_GENERATOR
variable has different meanings in different
contexts. In a CMakeLists.txt
file, CPACK_GENERATOR
is a
list of generators: and when cpack
is run with no other
arguments, it will iterate over that list and produce one package for each
generator. In a CPACK_PROJECT_CONFIG_FILE
,
CPACK_GENERATOR
is a string naming a single generator. If you
need per-cpack-generator logic to control other cpack settings, then you
need a CPACK_PROJECT_CONFIG_FILE
.
If set, the CPACK_PROJECT_CONFIG_FILE
is included automatically
on a per-generator basis. It only need contain overrides.
Here's how it works:
cpack
runs
it includes CPackConfig.cmake
it iterates over the generators given by the -G
command
line option, or if no such option was specified, over the list of generators
given by the CPACK_GENERATOR
variable set in the CPackConfig.cmake
input file.
foreach generator, it then
sets CPACK_GENERATOR
to the one currently being iterated
includes the CPACK_PROJECT_CONFIG_FILE
produces the package for that generator
This is the key: For each generator listed in CPACK_GENERATOR
in
CPackConfig.cmake
, cpack will reset CPACK_GENERATOR
internally to the one currently being used and then include the
CPACK_PROJECT_CONFIG_FILE
.
For a list of available generators, see cpack-generators(7)
.
If CMake is run with the Makefile, Ninja, or Xcode generator, then
include(CPack)
generates a target package
. This makes it possible
to build a binary installer from CMake, Make, or Ninja: Instead of cpack
,
one may call cmake --build . --target package
or make package
or
ninja package
. The VS generator creates an uppercase target PACKAGE
.
If CMake is run with the Makefile or Ninja generator, then include(CPack)
also generates a target package_source
. To build a source package,
instead of cpack -G TGZ --config CPackSourceConfig.cmake
one may call
cmake --build . --target package_source
, make package_source
,
or ninja package_source
.
Before including this CPack module in your CMakeLists.txt
file, there
are a variety of variables that can be set to customize the resulting
installers. The most commonly-used variables are:
The name of the package (or application). If not specified, it defaults to the project name.
The name of the package vendor. (e.g., "Kitware"). The default is "Humanity".
The directory in which CPack is doing its packaging. If it is not set
then this will default (internally) to the build dir. This variable may
be defined in a CPack config file or from the cpack
command line option -B
. If set, the command line option overrides the
value found in the config file.
Package major version. This variable will always be set, but its default
value depends on whether or not version details were given to the
project()
command in the top level CMakeLists.txt file. If version
details were given, the default value will be
CMAKE_PROJECT_VERSION_MAJOR
. If no version details were given,
a default version of 0.1.1 will be assumed, leading to
CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MAJOR
having a default value of 0.
Package minor version. The default value is determined based on whether or
not version details were given to the project()
command in the top
level CMakeLists.txt file. If version details were given, the default
value will be CMAKE_PROJECT_VERSION_MINOR
, but if no minor
version component was specified then CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MINOR
will be
left unset. If no project version was given at all, a default version of
0.1.1 will be assumed, leading to CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MINOR
having a
default value of 1.
Package patch version. The default value is determined based on whether or
not version details were given to the project()
command in the top
level CMakeLists.txt file. If version details were given, the default
value will be CMAKE_PROJECT_VERSION_PATCH
, but if no patch
version component was specified then CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH
will be
left unset. If no project version was given at all, a default version of
0.1.1 will be assumed, leading to CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH
having a
default value of 1.
A description of the project, used in places such as the introduction
screen of CPack-generated Windows installers. If not set, the value of
this variable is populated from the file named by
CPACK_PACKAGE_DESCRIPTION_FILE
.
A text file used to describe the project when
CPACK_PACKAGE_DESCRIPTION
is not explicitly set. The default
value for CPACK_PACKAGE_DESCRIPTION_FILE
points to a built-in template
file Templates/CPack.GenericDescription.txt
.
Short description of the project (only a few words). If the
CMAKE_PROJECT_DESCRIPTION
variable is set, it is used as the
default value, otherwise the default will be a string generated by CMake
based on CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME
.
Project homepage URL. The default value is taken from the
CMAKE_PROJECT_HOMEPAGE_URL
variable, which is set by the top
level project()
command, or else the default will be empty if no
URL was provided to project()
.
The name of the package file to generate, not including the
extension. For example, cmake-2.6.1-Linux-i686
. The default value
is:
${CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME}-${CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION}-${CPACK_SYSTEM_NAME}
Installation directory on the target system. This may be used by some CPack generators like NSIS to create an installation directory e.g., "CMake 2.5" below the installation prefix. All installed elements will be put inside this directory.
A branding image that will be displayed inside the installer (used by GUI installers).
Added in version 3.7.
An algorithm that will be used to generate an additional file with the checksum of the package. The output file name will be:
${CPACK_PACKAGE_FILE_NAME}.${CPACK_PACKAGE_CHECKSUM}
Supported algorithms are those listed by the string(<HASH>) command.
CPack-time project CPack configuration file. This file is included at cpack
time, once per generator after CPack has set CPACK_GENERATOR
to the actual generator being used. It allows per-generator setting of
CPACK_*
variables at cpack time.
License to be embedded in the installer. It will typically be displayed
to the user by the produced installer (often with an explicit "Accept"
button, for graphical installers) prior to installation. This license
file is NOT added to the installed files but is used by some CPack generators
like NSIS. If you want to use UTF-8 characters, the file needs to be encoded
in UTF-8 BOM. If you want to install a license file (may be the same as this
one) along with your project, you must add an appropriate CMake
install()
command in your CMakeLists.txt
.
ReadMe file to be embedded in the installer. It typically describes in some detail the purpose of the project during the installation. Not all CPack generators use this file.
Welcome file to be embedded in the installer. It welcomes users to this installer. Typically used in the graphical installers on Windows and Mac OS X.
Disables the component-based installation mechanism. When set, the
component specification is ignored and all installed items are put in a
single "MONOLITHIC" package. Some CPack generators do monolithic
packaging by default and may be asked to do component packaging by
setting CPACK_<GENNAME>_COMPONENT_INSTALL
to TRUE
.
List of CPack generators to use. If not specified, CPack will create a
set of options following the naming pattern
CPACK_BINARY_<GENNAME>
(e.g. CPACK_BINARY_NSIS
) allowing
the user to enable/disable individual generators. If the -G
option is given on the cpack
command line, it will override
this variable and any CPACK_BINARY_<GENNAME>
options.
The name of the CPack binary configuration file. This file is the CPack
configuration generated by the CPack module for binary installers.
Defaults to CPackConfig.cmake
.
Lists each of the executables and associated text label to be used to
create Start Menu shortcuts. For example, setting this to the list
ccmake;CMake
will create a shortcut named "CMake" that will execute the
installed executable ccmake. Not all CPack generators use it (at least
NSIS, Inno Setup and WIX do).
List of files to be stripped. Starting with CMake 2.6.0,
CPACK_STRIP_FILES
will be a boolean variable which enables
stripping of all files (a list of files evaluates to TRUE
in CMake,
so this change is compatible).
Added in version 3.4.
If set to TRUE
, values of variables prefixed with CPACK_
will be
escaped before being written to the configuration files, so that the cpack
program receives them exactly as they were specified. If not, characters
like quotes and backslashes can cause parsing errors or alter the value
received by the cpack program. Defaults to FALSE
for backwards
compatibility.
Added in version 3.20.
Number of threads to use when performing parallelized operations, such as compressing the installer package.
Some compression methods used by CPack generators such as Debian or Archive
may take advantage of multiple CPU cores to speed up compression.
CPACK_THREADS
can be set to specify how many threads will be
used for compression.
A positive integer can be used to specify an exact desired thread count.
When given a negative integer CPack will use the absolute value as the upper limit but may choose a lower value based on the available hardware concurrency.
Given 0 CPack will try to use all available CPU cores.
By default CPACK_THREADS
is set to 1
.
The following compression methods may take advantage of multiple cores:
xz
Supported if CMake is built with a liblzma
that supports
parallel compression.
Added in version 3.21: Official CMake binaries available on cmake.org
now ship
with a liblzma
that supports parallel compression.
Older versions did not.
zstd
Added in version 3.24.
Supported if CMake is built with libarchive 3.6 or higher.
Official CMake binaries available on cmake.org
support it.
Other compression methods ignore this value and use only one thread.
The following CPack variables are specific to source packages, and will not affect binary packages:
The name of the source package. For example cmake-2.6.1
.
List of files in the source tree that will be stripped. Starting with
CMake 2.6.0, CPACK_SOURCE_STRIP_FILES
will be a boolean
variable which enables stripping of all files (a list of files evaluates
to TRUE
in CMake, so this change is compatible).
List of generators used for the source packages. As with
CPACK_GENERATOR
, if this is not specified then CPack will
create a set of options (e.g. CPACK_SOURCE_ZIP
) allowing
users to select which packages will be generated.
The name of the CPack source configuration file. This file is the CPack
configuration generated by the CPack module for source installers.
Defaults to CPackSourceConfig.cmake
.
Pattern of files in the source tree that won't be packaged when building
a source package. This is a list of regular expression patterns (that
must be properly escaped), e.g.,
/CVS/;/\\.svn/;\\.swp$;\\.#;/#;.*~;cscope.*
The following variables are for advanced uses of CPack:
What CMake generator should be used if the project is a CMake
project. Defaults to the value of CMAKE_GENERATOR
. Few users
will want to change this setting.
List of four values that specify what project to install. The four values are: Build directory, Project Name, Project Component, Directory. If omitted, CPack will build an installer that installs everything.
System name, defaults to the value of CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME
,
except on Windows where it will be win32
or win64
.
Package full version, used internally. By default, this is built from
CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MAJOR
,
CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MINOR
, and
CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH
.
Directory for the installed files.
Extra commands to install components. The environment variable
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
is set to the temporary install directory
during execution.
Added in version 3.16.
Extra CMake scripts executed by CPack during its local staging
installation. They are executed before installing the files to be packaged.
The scripts are not called by a standalone install (e.g.: make install
).
For every script, the following variables will be set:
CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR
, CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR
and CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
(which is set to the staging install
directory). The singular form CMAKE_INSTALL_SCRIPT
is supported as
an alternative variable for historical reasons, but its value is ignored if
CMAKE_INSTALL_SCRIPTS
is set and a warning will be issued.
See also CPACK_PRE_BUILD_SCRIPTS
and
CPACK_POST_BUILD_SCRIPTS
which can be used to specify scripts
to be executed later in the packaging process.
Added in version 3.19.
List of CMake scripts to execute after CPack has installed the files to
be packaged into a staging directory and before producing the package(s)
from those files. See also CPACK_INSTALL_SCRIPTS
and
CPACK_POST_BUILD_SCRIPTS
.
Added in version 3.19.
List of CMake scripts to execute after CPack has produced the resultant
packages and before copying them back to the build directory.
See also CPACK_INSTALL_SCRIPTS
,
CPACK_PRE_BUILD_SCRIPTS
and CPACK_PACKAGE_FILES
.
Added in version 3.19.
List of package files created in the staging directory, with each file
provided as a full absolute path. This variable is populated by CPack
just before invoking the post-build scripts listed in
CPACK_POST_BUILD_SCRIPTS
. It is the preferred way for the
post-build scripts to know the set of package files to operate on.
Projects should not try to set this variable themselves.
Extra directories to install.
Registry key used when installing this project. This is only used by installers for Windows. The default value is based on the installation directory.
List of desktop links to create. Each desktop link requires a
corresponding start menu shortcut as created by
CPACK_PACKAGE_EXECUTABLES
.
CPack generated options for binary generators. The CPack.cmake
module
generates (when CPACK_GENERATOR
is not set) a set of CMake
options (see CMake option()
command) which may then be used to
select the CPack generator(s) to be used when building the package
target or when running cpack
without the
-G
option.
Added in version 3.25.
Specify the readelf
executable path used by CPack.
The default value will be CMAKE_READELF
when set. Otherwise,
the default value will be empty and CPack will use find_program()
to determine the readelf
path when needed.
Added in version 3.25.
Specify the objcopy
executable path used by CPack.
The default value will be CMAKE_OBJCOPY
when set. Otherwise,
the default value will be empty and CPack will use find_program()
to determine the objcopy
path when needed.
Added in version 3.25.
Specify the objdump
executable path used by CPack.
The default value will be CMAKE_OBJDUMP
when set. Otherwise,
the default value will be empty and CPack will use find_program()
to determine the objdump
path when needed.