# source_group

Define a grouping for source files in IDE project generation. There are two different signatures to create source groups.

    source_group(<name> [FILES <src>...] [REGULAR_EXPRESSION <regex>])
    source_group(TREE <root> [PREFIX <prefix>] [FILES <src>...])

Defines a group into which sources will be placed in project files. This is intended to set up file tabs in Visual Studio. The group is scoped in the directory where the command is called, and applies to sources in targets created in that directory.

The options are:

`TREE`

  New in version 3.8.

  CMake will automatically detect, from `<src>` files paths, source groups it needs to create, to keep structure of source groups analogically to the actual files and directories structure in the project. Paths of `<src>` files will be cut to be relative to `<root>`. The command fails if the paths within `src` do not start with `root`.

`PREFIX`

  New in version 3.8.

  Source group and files located directly in `<root>` path, will be placed in `<prefix>` source groups.

`FILES`

  Any source file specified explicitly will be placed in group `<name>`. Relative paths are interpreted with respect to the current source directory.

`REGULAR_EXPRESSION`

  Any source file whose name matches the regular expression will be placed in group `<name>`.

If a source file matches multiple groups, the last group that explicitly lists the file with `FILES` will be favored, if any. If no group explicitly lists the file, the last group whose regular expression matches the file will be favored.

The `<name>` of the group and `<prefix>` argument may contain forward slashes or backslashes to specify subgroups. Backslashes need to be escaped appropriately:

    source_group(base/subdir ...)
    source_group(outer\\inner ...)
    source_group(TREE <root> PREFIX sources\\inc ...)

New in version 3.18: Allow using forward slashes (`/`) to specify subgroups.

For backwards compatibility, the short-hand signature

    source_group(<name> <regex>)

is equivalent to

    source_group(<name> REGULAR_EXPRESSION <regex>)