[question] How to use editable library with cmake's conan provider file about conan HOT 2 CLOSED

Hi @Sickeroni

Having a project in editable mode doesn't mean that it becomes part of the consumer project. It is still an external dependency, and the consumer project cannot track source code changes there. Note that it is also totally possible that the dependency is even with a different build system than the consumer one, it could be a Meson project or Autotools, while the consumer is a CMake one (with the provider).

So any changes in the editable dependency still need to be built from source, and the only way to achieve this is:

• In the project itself, fire a build with conan build ., or cmake --build ... or meson ... or make, or whatever builds the project.
• From the consumer side, fire the build with --build=editable.

The problem is that there is no magic here, the editable and the consumer are still different projects. There is no physical way to make the consumer project aware of the source changes of the dependency project and automatically fire a rebuild of the dependency, unless conan install --build=editable is called. But the build systems don't have such a mechanism, once something is a dependency, it doesn't control its build.

from conan.

Thanks,
I assumed that already, but hoped for a different answer nad that i missed something.
Still fast and good answer and therefore big thanks (again)!
(closed therefore)

from conan.