How to Skip Recompilation of Modules When Updating a Shared Library Version in a C++11 Project?

[Neha200794]

Hey

I’m working on a C++11 project that uses Conan2 for dependency management and CMake for building. The project has a structure like this:

Libraries: libA, libB, coreLib Modules: 22 modules, like module1, module2, etc. (All depends on coreLib) Main Executable: MainApp depends on all libraries and modules.

The coreLib is a shared dependency across all modules. When I make any changes to coreLib, it results in a new version (e.g., from coreLib/1-release to coreLib/2-release).

Currently, this requires me to:

• Manually update the version of coreLib in each module's conanfile.py.
• Recompile all the modules with the new version.
• Build the MainApp executable with the updated modules.

Challenges I'm Facing:

1. Recompiling all 22 modules takes around 2 hours, even when changes in coreLib are internal and don’t impact the module interfaces.
2. If I don’t recompile a module, I run into version mismatch issues when building MainApp, as some modules may still reference coreLib/1-release while others use coreLib/2-release.

I’m looking for a way to skip recompilation of modules when it’s not needed, ideally automating this process.

What I’ve Tried:

• I explored using override=True in the conanfile.py but encountered issues when versions didn’t match.
• I also considered using conan lock files for managing consistency, but this doesn’t solve the recompilation problem directly.

Question:

Is there a way in Conan to manage this scenario more efficiently, such as:

• Allowing modules to use different versions of coreLib during the build of MainApp without triggering recompilation?

Any guidance or best practices for handling such dependency updates would be greatly appreciated!