Files
CMake/Help/command/target_compile_definitions.rst
Matthew Woehlke 277c12a4c7 Help: Improve command usage formatting consistency
Try to be a bit more consistent about:

- Placing angle brackets around text which serves as a placeholder
  rather than being literal.

- Using curly brackets rather than angle brackets to denote groups where
  one of the options is required.

- Describing optional list arguments like `<x>...` rather than
  `[<x>...]`. (Instances of lists not associated with keywords are
  intentionally left as-is, however.)

Also, teach our CMake lexer to understand curly braces used as above
(prior uses were only in parsed literals without syntax highlighting),
and to highlight them (and remaining uses of angle braces) as the type
Punctuation rather than the type Operator, for consistency with square
braces.
2026-02-13 12:54:37 -05:00

62 lines
2.2 KiB
ReStructuredText

target_compile_definitions
--------------------------
Add compile definitions to a target.
.. code-block:: cmake
target_compile_definitions(<target>
<INTERFACE|PUBLIC|PRIVATE> <definition>...
[<INTERFACE|PUBLIC|PRIVATE> <definition>... ...])
Specifies compile definitions to use when compiling a given ``<target>``. The
named ``<target>`` must have been created by a command such as
:command:`add_executable` or :command:`add_library` and must not be an
:ref:`ALIAS target <Alias Targets>`.
The ``INTERFACE``, ``PUBLIC`` and ``PRIVATE`` keywords are required to
specify the :ref:`scope <Target Command Scope>` of the following arguments.
``PRIVATE`` and ``PUBLIC`` items will populate the :prop_tgt:`COMPILE_DEFINITIONS`
property of ``<target>``. ``PUBLIC`` and ``INTERFACE`` items will populate the
:prop_tgt:`INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS` property of ``<target>``.
The following arguments specify compile definitions. Repeated calls for the
same ``<target>`` append items in the order called.
.. versionadded:: 3.11
Allow setting ``INTERFACE`` items on :ref:`IMPORTED targets <Imported Targets>`.
.. |command_name| replace:: ``target_compile_definitions``
.. include:: include/GENEX_NOTE.rst
Any leading ``-D`` on an item will be removed. Empty items are ignored.
For example, the following are all equivalent:
.. code-block:: cmake
target_compile_definitions(foo PUBLIC FOO)
target_compile_definitions(foo PUBLIC -DFOO) # -D removed
target_compile_definitions(foo PUBLIC "" FOO) # "" ignored
target_compile_definitions(foo PUBLIC -D FOO) # -D becomes "", then ignored
Definitions may optionally have values:
.. code-block:: cmake
target_compile_definitions(foo PUBLIC FOO=1)
Note that many compilers treat ``-DFOO`` as equivalent to ``-DFOO=1``, but
other tools may not recognize this in all circumstances (e.g. IntelliSense).
See Also
^^^^^^^^
* :command:`add_compile_definitions`
* :command:`target_compile_features`
* :command:`target_compile_options`
* :command:`target_include_directories`
* :command:`target_link_libraries`
* :command:`target_link_directories`
* :command:`target_link_options`
* :command:`target_precompile_headers`
* :command:`target_sources`