Linking against a debug version of a library with CMake

Question

I've got some problems with linking against a debug version of my lib. I use CMake to make a library:

project(myLib)
...
add_library(myLib SHARED ${SOURCES})

I launch the build two times to get a release and a debug version of my lib. Then I add 'd' suffix to the name of the debug lib and have myLib.dll and myLibd.dll.

In my app I explicitly link against the debug dll:

project(myApp)
add_executable(myApp WIN32 ${SOURCES})
target_link_libraries(myApp myLibd.dll)

The build finishes successfully, but when I open the resulting exe file with Dependency Walker I get an unresolved dependency to myLib.dll file, even though the debug version (myLibd.dll) is located in the same folder.

So, why does my app try to use the release version of my lib at runtime? And how do I properly link against the debug version?

Answer 1

You should not rename the file manually. Use CMake's CMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX variable or the DEBUG_POSTFIX target property instead:

add_library(myLib SHARED ${SOURCES})
set_target_properties(mylib PROPERTIES DEBUG_POSTFIX "d")

[...]
add_executable(myApp WIN32 ${SOURCES})
target_link_libraries(myApp myLib)