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Modern CMake for C++

The file() Command

Explore the CMake file() command to perform various file operations including reading, writing, copying, and archiving. Understand how to manipulate paths, create symlinks, set permissions, and handle file locking for efficient project management.

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This command provides all kinds of operations related to files:

  • Reading

  • Writing

  • Transferring

  • Locking

  • Archiving

It also provides modes to inspect the filesystem and operations on strings representing paths. Full details can be found in the online documentation.

Reading

The following modes are available:

  • file(READ <filename> <out> [OFFSET <o>] [LIMIT <max>] [HEX]) reads the file from <filename> to the <out> variable. The read optionally starts at offset <o> and follows the optional limit of <max> bytes. The HEX flag specifies that output should be converted to hexadecimal representation.

  • file(STRINGS <filename> <out>) reads strings from the file at <filename> to the <out> variable.

  • file(<algorithm> <filename> <out>) computes the <algorithm> hash from the file at <filename> and stores the result in the <out> ...