A command line tool and library for transferring data with URL syntax, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, GOPHERS, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET, TFTP, WS and WSS. libcurl offers a myriad of powerful features
Find a file
Viktor Szakats 16f073ef49
cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets
Rework the way curl's custom Find modules advertise their properties.

Before this patch, Find modules returned detected dependency properties
(header dirs, libs, libdirs, C flags, etc.) via global variables. curl's
main `CMakeLists.txt` copied their values into global lists, which it
later applied to targets. This solution worked internally, but it was
unsuited for the public, distributed `CURLConfig.cmake` and publishing
curl's Find modules with it, due to polluting the namespace of consumer
projects. It's also impractical to apply the many individual variables
to every targets depending on libcurl.

To allow using Find modules in consumer projects, this patch makes them
define as imported interface targets, named `CURL::<dependency>`. Then
store dependency information as target properties. It avoids namespace
pollution and makes the dependency information apply automatically
to all targets using `CURL::libcurl_static`.

Find modules continue to return `*_FOUND` and `*_VERSION` variables.

For dependencies detected via `pkg-config`, CMake 3.16+ is recommended.
Older CMake versions have a varying degree of support for
propagating/handling library directories. This may cause issues in envs
where dependencies reside in non-system locations and detected via
`pkg-config` (e.g. macOS + Homebrew). Use `CURL_USE_PKGCONFIG=OFF`
to fix these issues. Or upgrade to newer CMake, or link libcurl
dynamically.

Also:
- re-enable `pkg-config` for old cmake `find_library()` integration
  tests.
- make `curlinfo` build after these changes.
- distribute local Find modules.
- export the raw list of lib dependencies via `CURL_LIBRARIES_PRIVATE`.
- `CURLconfig.cmake`: use curl's Find modules to detect dependencies in
  the consumer env.
- add custom property to target property debug function.
- the curl build process no longer modifies `CMAKE_C_FLAGS`.
  Follow-up to e86542038d #17047

Ref: #14930
Ref: https://github.com/libssh2/libssh2/pull/1535
Ref: https://github.com/libssh2/libssh2/pull/1571
Ref: https://github.com/libssh2/libssh2/pull/1581
Ref: https://github.com/libssh2/libssh2/pull/1623

Closes #16973
2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
.circleci runtests: detect bad libssh differently for test 1459 (fixing CircleCI libssh job) 2025-11-16 23:28:44 +01:00
.github GHA/curl-for-win: drop WINE install, do not run curl after build 2025-11-28 15:39:12 +01:00
CMake cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets 2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
docs runtests: allow a test to switch off memdebug 2025-11-28 22:39:19 +01:00
include build: add build-level CURL_DISABLE_TYPECHECK options 2025-11-21 13:48:35 +01:00
lib cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets 2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
LICENSES krb5: drop support for Kerberos FTP 2025-09-20 23:58:28 +02:00
m4 autotools: add nettle library detection via pkg-config (for GnuTLS) 2025-11-26 12:39:30 +01:00
packages build: stop overriding standard memory allocation functions 2025-11-28 10:44:26 +01:00
plan9 tidy-up: LibreSSL Git repository URLs and local CI builds 2025-10-01 12:55:20 +02:00
projects projects/README.md: Markdown fixes 2025-11-17 15:09:09 +01:00
scripts build: stop overriding standard memory allocation functions 2025-11-28 10:44:26 +01:00
src cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets 2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
tests cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets 2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
.dir-locals.el copyright: update all copyright lines and remove year ranges 2023-01-03 09:19:21 +01:00
.editorconfig .editorconfig: add 2025-09-02 08:36:40 +02:00
.git-blame-ignore-revs copyright: update all copyright lines and remove year ranges 2023-01-03 09:19:21 +01:00
.gitattributes winbuild: MS-DOS batch tidy-ups 2024-07-02 19:26:15 +02:00
.gitignore build: drop the winbuild build system 2025-09-20 01:20:25 +02:00
.mailmap REUSE: add copyright header to two files 2025-11-03 16:08:52 +01:00
acinclude.m4 badwords: add more contractions, fix fallouts 2025-11-17 19:29:15 +01:00
appveyor.sh appveyor: add support for using custom CMake versions 2025-11-28 00:51:08 +01:00
appveyor.yml appveyor: add support for using custom CMake versions 2025-11-28 00:51:08 +01:00
buildconf copyright: update all copyright lines and remove year ranges 2023-01-03 09:19:21 +01:00
CHANGES.md CHANGES: rename to CHANGES.md, no longer generated 2024-08-01 13:37:12 +02:00
CMakeLists.txt cmake: define dependencies as IMPORTED interface targets 2025-11-29 01:41:40 +01:00
configure.ac memdebug: produce stack trace dump with libbacktrace 2025-11-24 11:58:18 +01:00
COPYING COPYING: bump copyright year range to 1996 - 2025 2025-01-01 21:12:12 +01:00
curl-config.in curl-config: remove X prefix use 2025-08-04 10:01:07 +02:00
Dockerfile Dockerfile: update debian:bookworm-slim digest to 936abff 2025-11-05 15:24:21 +01:00
GIT-INFO.md REUSE: add copyright header to two files 2025-11-03 16:08:52 +01:00
libcurl.pc.in configure: do not echo most inherited LDFLAGS to config files 2024-11-14 09:55:45 +01:00
Makefile.am cmake: add support for libbacktrace, fix two build issues 2025-11-24 14:29:29 +01:00
README krb5: drop support for Kerberos FTP 2025-09-20 23:58:28 +02:00
README.md badwords: re-sync with curl-www, fix issues found 2025-11-12 00:53:44 +01:00
RELEASE-NOTES RELEASE-NOTES: synced 2025-11-27 16:14:37 +01:00
renovate.json renovate.json: replace CI: prefix with GHA: 2025-11-17 16:50:20 +01:00
REUSE.toml tests/data: add %includetext, dedupe XML payloads into external file 2025-11-13 12:24:50 +01:00
SECURITY.md docs: Clarify OpenSSF Best Practices vs Scorecard 2024-08-22 11:50:20 +02:00

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curl is a command-line tool for transferring data from or to a server using URLs. It supports these protocols: DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, GOPHERS, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET, TFTP, WS and WSS.

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