CPack Archive Generator — CMake 4.2.6 Documentation

# CPack Archive Generator

CPack generator for packaging files into an archive, which can have any of the following formats:

- 7Z - 7zip - (`.7z`)

  Added in version 3.1.

- TAR (`.tar`)

  Added in version 4.0.

- TBZ2 (`.tar.bz2`)

- TGZ (`.tar.gz`)

- TXZ (`.tar.xz`)

  Added in version 3.1.

- TZ (`.tar.Z`)

- TZST (`.tar.zst`)

  Added in version 3.16.

- ZIP (`.zip`)

When this generator is called from `CPackSourceConfig.cmake` (or through the `package_source` target), then the generated archive will contain all files in the project directory, except those specified in `CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES`. The following is one example of packaging all source files of a project:

    set(CPACK_SOURCE_GENERATOR "TGZ")
    set(CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES
      \\.git/
      build/
      ".*~$"
    )
    set(CPACK_VERBATIM_VARIABLES YES)
    include(CPack)

When this generator is called from `CPackConfig.cmake` (or through the `package` target), then the generated archive will contain all files that have been installed via CMake's `install()` command (and the deprecated commands `install_files()`, `install_programs()`, and `install_targets()`).

## Variables specific to CPack Archive generator

CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_NAME

  Added in version 3.9.

  Archive name for component-based packages, without extension.

  Default:

    `CPACK_PACKAGE_FILE_NAME`

  The extension is appended automatically.

  If `CPACK_COMPONENTS_GROUPING` is set to `ALL_COMPONENTS_IN_ONE`, this will be the name of the one output archive.

  Changed in version 4.0: This variable also works for non-component packages.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_<component>_FILE_NAME

  Added in version 3.9.

  Component archive name without extension.

  Default:

    `<CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_NAME>-<component>`, with spaces replaced by `'-'`.

  The extension is appended automatically. Note that `<component>` is all uppercase in the variable name.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_EXTENSION

  Added in version 3.25.

  Archive file extension.

  Default:

    Default values are given in the list above.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_COMPONENT_INSTALL

  Enable component packaging.

  Default:

    `OFF`

  If enabled (`ON`) multiple packages are generated. By default a single package containing files of all components is generated.

## Variables used by CPack Archive generator

These variables are used by the Archive generator, but are also available to CPack generators which are essentially archives at their core. These include:

- `CPack Cygwin Generator`

- `CPack FreeBSD Generator`

CPACK_ARCHIVE_THREADS

  Added in version 3.18.

  The number of threads to use when performing the compression.

  Default:

    value of `CPACK_THREADS`

  If set to `0`, the number of available cores on the machine will be used instead. Note that not all compression modes support threading in all environments.

  Added in version 3.21: Official CMake binaries available on `cmake.org` now ship with a `liblzma` that supports parallel compression. Older versions did not.