tinyxml2: CMake error: Could not find a package configuration file provided by "TinyXML2" with any of the following names: TinyXML2Config.cmake tinyxml2-config.cmake

I am trying to build a CMake package which requires tinyxml2, but am unable to get it to work. Error:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:9 (find_package):
  By not providing "FindTinyXML2.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has
  asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "TinyXML2",
  but CMake did not find one.

  Could not find a package configuration file provided by "TinyXML2" with any
  of the following names:

    TinyXML2Config.cmake
    tinyxml2-config.cmake

  Add the installation prefix of "TinyXML2" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
  "TinyXML2_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files.  If
  "TinyXML2" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has
  been installed.

The package I am building is host-rospack, built via Buildroot.

I have tried installing TinyXML2 in 3 ways, none of which work to make Cmake find it!:

Via apt on ubuntu 22.04:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libtinyxml2-dev
sudo apt install libtinyxml-dev

Via make

git clone https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2.git
cd tinyxml2/
make
sudo make install

Via vcpkg, as described here:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install tinyxml2

How do I install tinyxml2 in such a way that my CMake package which requires it (rospack in my case) can find it?

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created a year ago
Comments: 17 (4 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

I had taken advice from gpt4.0.

include_directories(/path/to/tinyxml2/include)
link_directories(/path/to/tinyxml2/lib)

yinghaoyu on Aug 17, 2023

As the developer of the CMake integration for this library, I can say absolutely that GPT’s suggestion is wrong. No library should be linked to that way, at least not since CMake 2.8.10, almost a decade ago. Libraries that make you do that are ill-behaved. Don’t listen to LLMs. LLMs are misleading and provide an absolutely false sense of confidence about bad code.

If you post clear steps to reproduce the issue, I will be happy to help you debug.

alexreinking on Aug 21, 2023

@alexreinking

Thanks for the suggestion! I think my bit of example code works now (for my future reference if nothing else). I didn’t know about FetchContent before, this is way better than using submodules imo.

For those that want a bit of starter code to integrate tinyxml2 into an existing project: https://github.com/stefanaerospace/tinyxml2-quickstart

stefanaerospace on Aug 26, 2023