Bug Solve : CMake - GTest does not respect user

[satasiyakrish1]

Bug Fix: CMake — GTest does not respect user CMAKE_<ARTIFACT>_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

Closes #4957

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Problem

CMake exposes a family of variables that let users control where build artifacts are placed:

Variable	Controls
CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	Executables / DLLs
CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	Static libraries
CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	Shared libraries (non-DLL)
CMAKE_PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	Linker PDB files
CMAKE_COMPILE_PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY	Compiler PDB files

cxx_library_with_type in googletest/cmake/internal_utils.cmake was overriding all five of these by setting the corresponding target properties to hardcoded paths under ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin and ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib.

Because target-level properties take precedence over CMAKE_* cache variables, any user-supplied -DCMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=… (or equivalent) was silently ignored, forcing GTest artifacts into lib/ regardless.

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Changes

googletest/cmake/internal_utils.cmake

1. cxx_library_with_type — removed hardcoded *_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY target properties

The entire set_target_properties(… RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY … ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY …) block was removed.
CMake's documented behaviour: when these target properties are left unset, the build system automatically inherits their values from the corresponding CMAKE_<ARTIFACT>_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY variable. This is exactly the behaviour users expect.

# BEFORE — hardcoded, ignores user settings
set_target_properties(${name}
  PROPERTIES
  RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin"
  LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib"
  ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib"
  PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY     "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin"
  COMPILE_PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib")

# AFTER — properties left unset; CMAKE_* variables are respected automatically

2. install_project — fixed broken PDB install path (MSVC)

The old PDB install code read the PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY target property to build the install source path:

# BEFORE — reads a property that is now unset → yields "…-NOTFOUND/…"
get_target_property(t_pdb_output_directory ${t} PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY)
install(FILES "${t_pdb_output_directory}/\${CMAKE_INSTALL_CONFIG_NAME}/….pdb" …)

Since that property is no longer set on the target, the stale lookup would have produced a *-NOTFOUND path, silently skipping PDB installation on MSVC.
Fixed by using a generator expression that resolves the actual binary output directory at install time:

# AFTER — resolves correctly regardless of what CMAKE_*_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is set to
install(FILES
  "$<TARGET_FILE_DIR:${t}>/$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:${t_pdb_name_debug}>$<$<NOT:$<CONFIG:Debug>>:${t_pdb_name}>.pdb"
  …
  OPTIONAL)

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Why this is safe / no regression

• The hardcoded paths (bin/, lib/) were already CMake's own defaults — so builds that do not set CMAKE_*_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY produce identical output as before.
• Builds that do set those variables will now correctly have GTest artifacts placed in the user-specified directories.
• The PDB name properties (PDB_NAME, COMPILE_PDB_NAME, etc.) are kept — they control the filename, not the directory, and are unrelated to this bug.

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Testing

Reproduce the original issue and verify the fix:

cmake -B build \
  -DCMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=/tmp/my_libs \
  -DCMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=/tmp/my_bin
cmake --build build

# Before fix: GTest .a files still appear in build/lib/
# After fix:  GTest .a files appear in /tmp/my_libs/ ✓

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