Exporting

There are two ways to access a project from another project. First is exporting targets and using them in the build directory. It usually is simply a by-product of setting up the third method (installing), but is useful for development and as a way to prepare to discuss the installation procedure.

First, you should make an export set, probably near the end of your main CMakeLists.txt:

export(TARGETS MyLib1 MyLib2 NAMESPACE MyLib:: FILE MyLibTargets.cmake)

This puts the targets you've listed into a file in the build directory, and optionally prefixes them with a namespace. Now, to allow CMake to find this package, export the package into the $HOME/.cmake/packages folder:

export(PACKAGE MyLib)

Now, if you find_package(MyLib), CMake can find the build folder. Look at the generated MyLibTargets.cmake file to help you understand exactly what is created; it's just a normal CMake file, with the exported targets.

Note that there's a downside: if you have imported dependencies, they will need to be imported before you find_package. That will be fixed in the next method.