# Using GDAL in CMake projects

New in version 3.5.

The recommended way to use the GDAL library 3.5 or higher in a CMake project is to link to the imported library target `GDAL::GDAL` provided by the CMake configuration which comes with the library. Typical usage is:

    find_package(GDAL CONFIG REQUIRED)

    target_link_libraries(MyApp PRIVATE GDAL::GDAL)

By adding the imported library target `GDAL::GDAL` to the target link libraries, CMake will also pass the include directories to the compiler.

The CMake command `find_package` will look for the configuration in a number of places. The lookup can be adjusted for all packages by setting the cache variable or environment variable `CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH`. In particular, CMake will consult (and set) the cache variable `GDAL_DIR`.

Before GDAL 3.5, you can use the following to create the imported library target `GDAL::GDAL`:

    find_package(GDAL CONFIG QUIET)
    if(NOT TARGET GDAL::GDAL)
        find_package(GDAL REQUIRED)
        if(NOT TARGET GDAL::GDAL)
            add_library(GDAL IMPORTED)
            if(DEFINED GDAL_LIBRARIES)
                target_link_libraries(GDAL INTERFACE "${GDAL_LIBRARIES}")
                add_library(GDAL::GDAL ALIAS GDAL)
            else()
                message(FATAL_ERROR "Missing GDAL_LIBRARIES")
            endif()
        endif()
    endif()

    target_link_libraries(MyApp PRIVATE GDAL::GDAL)