Premake alternative to the CMake interface library

[learn-more]

Is there a Premake alternative to the CMake concept of an 'interface' library?

An 'interface' library has the following properties when linking against it:

• It adds whatever libraries are defined inside this 'interface' library (not the main advantage)
• It adds whatever preprocessor macro's / conditions are set
• It adds include paths
• It adds link paths
• .. probably more?

The main advantage I see with this is that we don't have to pollute the preprocessor macro's / include / link paths for all projects, just for the projects that need it.

Given this pseudo premake5.lua file:

project "gsl"
    kind "Interface"
    includedirs { "gsl/include" }
    defines { "HAS_GSL" }

project "example_1"
    kind "ConsoleApp"
    files { "main.cpp" }
    links { "gsl" }

project "example_2"
    kind "ConsoleApp"
    files { "main.cpp" }

This would mean that example_1 has the folder gsl/include added to the include paths, and the define HAS_GSL set.

[Jarod42]

Related to https://github.com/premake/premake-core/issues/1346

As premake uses Lua, you might still create Lua functions:

function useGsl()
    externalincludedirs { "gsl/include" }
    defines { "HAS_GSL" }
end

and then

project "example_1"
    kind "ConsoleApp"
    files { "main.cpp" }
    useGsl()

project "example_2"
    kind "ConsoleApp"
    files { "main.cpp" }

[learn-more]

That works, until you move the function to other directories, because the relative paths will be relative to where the function is used, instead of where the function is defined.

[nickclark2016]

This isn't something that's on the roadmap for v5 currently (we would gladly accept PRs for something like this, though). What I personally do is use a table and just reference that in the scripts.

[learn-more]

This isn't something that's on the roadmap for v5 currently (we would gladly accept PRs for something like this, though). What I personally do is use a table and just reference that in the scripts.

Do you happen to have an example for this?

[SirNate0]

In Meson these are called dependencies, which I think is a much better name. I think there may be some slight differences with CMake interface libraries, though I think they do everything listed above.