# CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH

Semicolon-separated list of directories to be ignored by the various `find...()` commands.

For `find_program()`, `find_library()`, `find_file()`, and `find_path()`, any file found in one of the listed directories will be ignored. The listed directories do not apply recursively, so any subdirectories to be ignored must also be explicitly listed. `CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH` does not affect the search prefixes used by these four commands. To ignore individual paths under a search prefix (e.g. `bin`, `include`, `lib`, etc.), each path must be listed in `CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH` as a full absolute path. `CMAKE_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH` provides a more appropriate way to ignore a whole search prefix.

`find_package()` is also affected by `CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH`, but only for Config mode searches. Any `<Name>Config.cmake` or `<name>-config.cmake` file found in one of the specified directories will be ignored. In addition, any search prefix found in `CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH` will be skipped for backward compatibility reasons, but new code should prefer to use `CMAKE_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH` to ignore prefixes instead.

Ignoring search locations can be useful in cross-compiling environments where some system directories contain incompatible but possibly linkable libraries. For example, on cross-compiled cluster environments, this allows a user to ignore directories containing libraries meant for the front-end machine.

By default, `CMAKE_IGNORE_PATH` is empty. It is intended to be set by the project or the end user.

See also the following variables:

- `CMAKE_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH`

- `CMAKE_SYSTEM_IGNORE_PATH`

- `CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH`

- `CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH`

- `CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH`

- `CMAKE_PROGRAM_PATH`