CMake support "make uninstall"?

cmake uninstallation
katang picture katang · Jan 4, 2017 · Viewed 45.9k times · Source

I am trying to find some sudo-free solution to enable my users install and unistall my application. Using

set(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX "$ENV{HOME}/opt/${CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME}-${CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION}/")
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "$ENV{HOME}/${CPACK_PACKAGE_NAME}-${CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION}/")

I can direct the files to the user's home directory, and

make install

works fine. With reference to What's the opposite of 'make install', ie. how do you uninstall a library in Linux? I did not find any idea, which is sudo-free and is not complex for a non-system-admin person.

  1. Is anyhow make uninstall supported by CMake?

  2. My uninstall is quite simple: all files go in a subdirectory of the user's home. In principle, removed that new subdirectory could solve the problem. Has make install, with parameters above, any side effect, or I can write in my user's guide that the newly produced subdirectory can be removed as 'uninstall'?

Answer

Emilio González Montaña picture Emilio González Montaña · Jun 20, 2017

If you want to add an uninstall target you can take a look to the official CMake FAQ at:

https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/community/wikis/FAQ#can-i-do-make-uninstall-with-cmake

If you just want a quick way to uninstall all files, just run:

xargs rm < install_manifest.txt

install_manifest.txt file is created when you run make install.

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