How to copy DLL files into the same folder as the executable using CMake?

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I’d use add_custom_command to achieve this along with cmake -E copy_if_different.... For full info run

cmake --help-command add_custom_command
cmake -E

So in your case, if you have the following directory structure:

/CMakeLists.txt
/src
/libs/test.dll

and your CMake target to which the command applies is MyTest, then you could add the following to your CMakeLists.txt:

add_custom_command(TARGET MyTest POST_BUILD        # Adds a post-build event to MyTest
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_if_different  # which executes "cmake - E copy_if_different..."
        "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/test.dll"      # <--this is in-file
        $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:MyTest>)                 # <--this is out-file path

If you just want the entire contents of the /libs/ directory copied, use cmake -E copy_directory:

add_custom_command(TARGET MyTest POST_BUILD
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_directory
        "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs"
        $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:MyTest>)

If you need to copy different dlls depending upon the configuration (Release, Debug, eg) then you could have these in subdirectories named with the corresponding configuration: /libs/Release, and /libs/Debug. You then need to inject the configuration type into the path to the dll in the add_custom_command call, like this:

add_custom_command(TARGET MyTest POST_BUILD
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy_directory
        "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/$<CONFIGURATION>"
        $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:MyTest>)

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