CMake/Help/prop_tgt/LOCATION.rst

LOCATION
--------

Read-only location of a target on disk.

For an imported target, this read-only property returns the value of
the LOCATION_<CONFIG> property for an unspecified configuration
<CONFIG> provided by the target.

For a non-imported target, this property is provided for compatibility
with CMake 2.4 and below.  It was meant to get the location of an
executable target's output file for use in add_custom_command.  The
path may contain a build-system-specific portion that is replaced at
build time with the configuration getting built (such as
"$(ConfigurationName)" in VS).  In CMake 2.6 and above
add_custom_command automatically recognizes a target name in its
COMMAND and DEPENDS options and computes the target location.  In
CMake 2.8.4 and above add_custom_command recognizes generator
expressions to refer to target locations anywhere in the command.
Therefore this property is not needed for creating custom commands.

Do not set properties that affect the location of a target after
reading this property.  These include properties whose names match
"(RUNTIME|LIBRARY|ARCHIVE)_OUTPUT_(NAME|DIRECTORY)(_<CONFIG>)?",
``(IMPLIB_)?(PREFIX|SUFFIX)``, or "LINKER_LANGUAGE".  Failure to follow
this rule is not diagnosed and leaves the location of the target
undefined.