CPack Archive Generator — CMake 4.4.3 Documentation

# CPack Archive Generator

CPack generator for packaging files into an archive, which can have any of the following formats:

- 7Z - 7zip - (`.7z`) - LZMA compressed

  Added in version 3.1.

  This is an alias for `7Z_LZMA`

- 7Z_BZ2 - 7zip - (`.7z`) - BZip2 compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_DEFLATE - 7zip - (`.7z`) - Deflate compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_LZMA - 7zip - (`.7z`) - LZMA compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_LZMA2 - 7zip - (`.7z`) - LZMA2 compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_PPMD - 7zip - (`.7z`) - PPMd compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_STORE - 7zip - (`.7z`) - no compression is used

  Added in version 4.3.

- 7Z_ZSTD - 7zip - (`.7z`) - Zstandard compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- TAR (`.tar`) - no compression is used

  Added in version 4.0.

- TBZ2 (`.tar.bz2`) - BZip2 compressed

- TGZ (`.tar.gz`) - Deflate compressed

- TXZ (`.tar.xz`) - LZMA2 compressed

  Added in version 3.1.

- TZ (`.tar.Z`) - LZW compressed

- TZST (`.tar.zst`) - Zstandard compressed

  Added in version 3.16.

- ZIP (`.zip`) - Deflate compressed

  This is an alias for `ZIP_DEFLATE`

- ZIP_BZ2 (`.zip`) - BZip2 compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- ZIP_DEFLATE (`.zip`) - Deflate compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- ZIP_LZMA (`.zip`) - LZMA compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- ZIP_LZMA2 (`.zip`) - LZMA2 compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

- ZIP_STORE (`.zip`) - no compression is used

  Added in version 4.3.

- ZIP_ZSTD (`.zip`) - Zstandard compressed

  Added in version 4.3.

When this generator is called from `CPackSourceConfig.cmake` (or through the `package_source` target), then the generated archive will contain all files in the project directory, except those specified in `CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES`. The following is one example of packaging all source files of a project:

    set(CPACK_SOURCE_GENERATOR "TGZ")
    set(CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES
      \\.git/
      build/
      ".*~$"
    )
    set(CPACK_VERBATIM_VARIABLES YES)
    include(CPack)

When this generator is called from `CPackConfig.cmake` (or through the `package` target), then the generated archive will contain all files that have been installed via CMake's `install()` command (and the deprecated commands `install_files()`, `install_programs()`, and `install_targets()`).

## Variables specific to CPack Archive generator

CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_NAME

  Added in version 3.9.

  Archive name for component-based packages, without extension.

  Default:

    `CPACK_PACKAGE_FILE_NAME`

  The extension is appended automatically.

  If `CPACK_COMPONENTS_GROUPING` is set to `ALL_COMPONENTS_IN_ONE`, this will be the name of the one output archive.

  Changed in version 4.0: This variable also works for non-component packages.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_<component>_FILE_NAME

  Added in version 3.9.

  Component archive name without extension.

  Default:

    `<CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_NAME>-<component>`, with spaces replaced by `'-'`.

  The extension is appended automatically. Note that `<component>` is all uppercase in the variable name.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_FILE_EXTENSION

  Added in version 3.25.

  Archive file extension.

  Default:

    Default values are given in the list above.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_COMPONENT_INSTALL

  Enable component packaging.

  Default:

    `OFF`

  If enabled (`ON`) multiple packages are generated. By default a single package containing files of all components is generated.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_UID

  Set the UID of entries contained in the archive. Specify `-1` to use the UID of the current user.

  Default:

    `0` (see policy `CMP0206`)

CPACK_ARCHIVE_GID

  Set the GID of entries contained in the archive. Specify `-1` to use the GID of the current user.

  Default:

    `0` (see policy `CMP0206`)

## Variables used by CPack Archive generator

These variables are used by the Archive generator, but are also available to CPack generators which are essentially archives at their core. These include:

- `CPack Cygwin Generator`

- `CPack FreeBSD Generator`

CPACK_ARCHIVE_THREADS

  Added in version 3.18.

  The number of threads to use when performing the compression.

  Default:

    value of `CPACK_THREADS`

  If set to `0`, the number of available cores on the machine will be used instead. Note that not all compression modes support threading in all environments.

  Added in version 3.21: Official CMake binaries available on `cmake.org` now ship with a `liblzma` that supports parallel compression. Older versions did not.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_COMPRESSION_LEVEL

  Added in version 4.3.

  The compression level to use when compressing the archive.

  Default:

    value of `CPACK_COMPRESSION_LEVEL`

  The compression level should be between `0` and `9`.

  The compression level of the Zstandard-based algorithm can be set between `0` and `19`, except for the `ZIP_ZSTD` mode.

  The value `0` is used to specify the default compression level. It is selected automatically by the archive library backend and not directly set by CMake itself. The default compression level may vary between archive formats, platforms, etc.

CPACK_ARCHIVE_ENCODING

  Added in version 4.4.

  Specify the pathname character encoding used in package archives.

  Default:

    `UTF-8`

  See the `cmake -E tar` tool's `--cmake-tar-encoding` flag for supported encoding names.

  In CMake 4.3 and below, the `OEM` encoding (current locale) was always used.