[question] PUBLIC / PRIVATE Link Libraries Separation

Let’s take following simplified example:

find_package(Boost REQUIRED)
find_package(OpenSSL REQUIRED)

add_library(Foo)

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME}
	PUBLIC
		Boost::Boost
	PRIVATE
		OpenSSL::OpenSSL
)

#...
include(CMakePackageConfigHelpers)
configure_package_config_file(...)
install(...)

Now, let’s assume we want to consume Foo:

find_package(Foo REQUIRED)

add_executable(App)

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME}
    PRIVATE
        Foo::Foo
)

Now, having OpenSSL defined as a private dependency of Foo means that App can link against it, but cannot include any API of it. Instead, in case of Boost, App can use it within the application.

CMake, when generating the Package Configuration Files, uses $<LINK_ONLY:...> to specify private link dependencies without other usage requirements.

My question is, how can I describe the PUBLIC / PRIVATE separation within package_info()?

• I’ve read the CONTRIBUTING guide.

[memsharded]

Hi @lucabonifacio

at the moment (Conan 1.X), all requires are by default public, and linkage requirements are propagated to the consumers. This is because Conan graph model has requires and build_requires```, but there is nothing inside requires`` that allows to define the visibility of the transitive requirements.

Conan 2.0 introduces a new model that does exactly this. Check this Tribe 2.0 proposal: https://github.com/conan-io/tribe/pull/26

[memsharded]

Hi @dornbirndevelops

Please don’t use undocumented things in your recipe code, those will easily break, and if you do it, it is at your own risk. Specifically this one has already been removed in the new model, it will not exist via the self.dependencies model