find_package(VTK) creates ExternalData directory in build (vtk 9.0.0.rc2)

Support
1

I compiled and installed vtk 9.0.0.rc2.
When I try to build a small program to use the VTK I compiled, an ‘ExternalData’ subdirectory gets added to my build dir when I call find_package.
Here’s the simplest CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(my_test)
set(VTK_DIR /path/to/my/VTK/9.0.0.rc2/lib64/cmake/vtk-9.0)
find_package(VTK 9.0 REQUIRED RenderingOpenGL2 NO_MODULE PATHS ${VTK_DIR})

Contents of build directory after calling CMake:

CMakeCache.txt
CMakeFiles
ExternalData
Makefile
cmake_install.cmake

The ExternalData directory contains an ‘Objects’ directory, which is empty.
So more of an annoyance than anything.

Is there a flag to use when I compile VTK to prevent this directory from being created when I build projects that use VTK?

Thanks,
Kathleen

2

Ah, we include vtkExternalData.cmake from vtk-config.cmake. It looks like we don’t need to do that. Thanks for the report.

3

https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/-/merge_requests/6738/diffs