Remove specific file from cmake build

Question

I have a project in which i have essentially two main methods. One for testing and one for, well, running the code. Normally you would create submodules, but this is not an option.

file(GLOB sources "*.cpp")
file(GLOB headers "*.h")
add_executable(testing ${sources} ${headers})   
add_executable(main ${sources} ${headers})   

So testing should compile all sources except for main.cpp. Main should compile everything but testing.cpp.

Answer 1

The normal way would probably be to create a library from all the sources except main.cpp and testing.cpp, then link this to each executable. However, I guess you mean you can't do that when you say you can't create submodules.

Instead, you can use the list(REMOVE_ITEM ...) command:

file(GLOB sources "*.cpp")
file(GLOB headers "*.h")
set(testing_sources ${sources})
list(REMOVE_ITEM testing_sources ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/main.cpp)
list(REMOVE_ITEM sources ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/testing.cpp)
add_executable(main ${sources} ${headers})
add_executable(testing ${testing_sources} ${headers})