LOCATION — CMake 4.2.6 Documentation

# LOCATION

Read-only location of a target on disk.

For an imported target, this read-only property returns the value of the `LOCATION_<CONFIG>` property for an unspecified configuration `<CONFIG>` provided by the target.

For a non-imported target, this property is provided for compatibility with CMake 2.4 and below. It was meant to get the location of an executable target's output file for use in `add_custom_command()`. The path may contain a build-system-specific portion that is replaced at build time with the configuration getting built (such as `$(ConfigurationName)` in VS). In CMake 2.6 and above `add_custom_command()` automatically recognizes a target name in its `COMMAND` and `DEPENDS` options and computes the target location. In CMake 2.8.4 and above `add_custom_command()` recognizes `generator expressions` to refer to target locations anywhere in the command. Therefore this property is not needed for creating custom commands.

Do not set properties that affect the location of a target after reading this property. These include properties whose names match `(RUNTIME|LIBRARY|ARCHIVE)_OUTPUT_(NAME|DIRECTORY)(_<CONFIG>)?`, `(IMPLIB_)?(PREFIX|SUFFIX)`, or "LINKER_LANGUAGE". Failure to follow this rule is not diagnosed and leaves the location of the target undefined.