CMake target_link_directories is adding extra unexpected directories. How can I remove them?

Consider the following:

target_link_directories(${PROJECT_NAME} PUBLIC
	"../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/glew/lib/x64"
	"../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/OpenImageIO/Windows/lib"
#and etc.

This result in the following lines in the solution in Additional Library Directories:

C:/Users/user/Documents/gpu-open/MyProjectName/MyProjectName.Src/../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/glew/lib/x64
C:/Users/user/Documents/gpu-open/MyProjectName/MyProjectName.Src/../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/glew/lib/x64/$(Configuration)
C:/Users/user/Documents/gpu-open/MyProjectName/MyProjectName.Src/../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/OpenImageIO/Windows/lib
C:/Users/user/Documents/gpu-open/MyProjectName/MyProjectName.Src/../MyProjectNameSharedComponents/OpenImageIO/Windows/lib/$(Configuration)

Lines that are generated via generator expression show similar behavior, e.g.

"$<$<CONFIG:Debug2022>:"
    "$ENV{MAYA_X64_2022}/lib"
">"

Produces:

C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2022/lib
C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2022/lib/$(Configuration)

And its even worse on macOS where CMake adds $(CONFIGURATION)$(EFFECTIVE_PLATFORM_NAME) to the LibrarySearchPath lines of Xcode projects.

Where does this "/$(Configuration)" line come from, and how can I remove it?

At the time of this writing (when CMake 3.27 is the latest version), for the Visual Studio generator, it looks like this is hardcoded in the CMake source code without any way to disable it.

In cmVisualStudio10TargetGenerator.cxx's cmVisualStudio10TargetGenerator::ComputeLinkOptions

  std::vector<std::string> const& ldirs = cli.GetDirectories();
  std::vector<std::string> linkDirs;
  for (std::string const& d : ldirs) {
    // first just full path
    linkDirs.push_back(d);
    // next path with configuration type Debug, Release, etc
    linkDirs.push_back(d + "/$(Configuration)");
  }

You could either build your own modified version of CMake, or ask the maintainers to add a feature to toggle this behaviour.

For the Xcode generator, it looks like you can disable this by changing policy CMP0142 (cmake_policy(SET CMP0142 NEW)). Quoting the docs:

> New in version 3.25.
>
> The Xcode generator does not append per-config suffixes to library search paths.
>
> In CMake 3.24 and below, the Xcode generator preceded each entry of a library search path with a copy of itself appended with $(CONFIGURATION)$(EFFECTIVE_PLATFORM_NAME). This was left from very early versions of CMake in which per-config directories were not well modeled. Such paths often do not exist, resulting in warnings from the toolchain. CMake 3.25 and above prefer to not add such library search paths. This policy provides compatibility for projects that may have been accidentally relying on the old behavior.
>
> The OLD behavior for this policy is to append $(CONFIGURATION)$(EFFECTIVE_PLATFORM_NAME) to all library search paths. The NEW behavior is to not modify library search paths.
>
> This policy was introduced in CMake version 3.25. Use the cmake_policy() command to set it to OLD or NEW explicitly. Unlike many policies, CMake version 3.27.0-rc3 does not warn when this policy is not set and simply uses OLD behavior.

See cmGlobalXCodeGenerator.cxx's cmGlobalXCodeGenerator::AddDependAndLinkInformation:

    // add the library search paths
    {
      BuildObjectListOrString libSearchPaths(this, true);

      std::string linkDirs;
      for (auto const& libDir : cli->GetDirectories()) {
        if (!libDir.empty() && libDir != "/usr/lib") {
          cmPolicies::PolicyStatus cmp0142 =
            target->GetTarget()->GetPolicyStatusCMP0142();
          if (cmp0142 == cmPolicies::OLD || cmp0142 == cmPolicies::WARN) {
            libSearchPaths.Add(this->XCodeEscapePath(
              libDir + "/$(CONFIGURATION)$(EFFECTIVE_PLATFORM_NAME)"));
          }
          libSearchPaths.Add(this->XCodeEscapePath(libDir));
        }
      }

You'd need to ask the maintainers why exactly this stuff is the way it is (at least from a historical perspective). See https://discourse.cmake.org/. If you do ask, please comment here with a link to the Discourse page.