What type should I use for a list of file or directory paths in CMake?

Question

Cached variables in CMake have one of several types:

Type identifier	Description
BOOL	Boolean ON/OFF value.
FILEPATH	Path to a file on disk.
PATH	Path to a directory on disk.
STRING	A line of text.
INTERNAL	A line of text. cmake-gui does not show internal entries. They may be used to store variables persistently across runs.

If I want to store a CMake-style^* list of file paths or directory paths, should I define it as FILEPATH or PATH, respectively? As a STRING?

_{* - i.e. represented in a semicolon-separated string.}

Answer 1

FILEPATH and PATH are suitable only for a single path. E.g. when a user fills parameters of one of these types, CMake GUI provides a path-selection dialog.

For the list of paths use STRING parameter.

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In case you will use non-semicolon separator between paths, you will need to convert that separator to semicolon before use that list in CMakeLists.txt. E.g. you could choose a colon (:) to be used a separator, like for the PATH variable on Linux.