Manual Integration

When installing libraries, vcpkg creates a single common layout partitioned by triplet.

The root of the tree in Classic mode is <vcpkg root>/installed. The root of the tree in Manifest mode is <vcpkg.json directory>/vcpkg_installed.

Underneath this root, in a subfolder named after the triplet:

• Header files: include/
• Release .lib, .a, and .so files: lib/ or lib/manual-link/
• Release .dll files: bin/
• Release .pc files: lib/pkgconfig/ or share/pkgconfig/
• Debug .lib, .a, and .so files: debug/lib/ or debug/lib/manual-link/
• Debug .dll files: debug/bin/
• Debug .pc files: debug/lib/pkgconfig/ or debug/share/pkgconfig/
• Tools: tools/<port>/

For example, zlib.h for zlib:x64-windows in classic mode is located at <vcpkg root>/installed/x64-windows/include/zlib.h.

See your build system specific documentation for how to use prebuilt binaries. For example, Makefile projects often accept environment variables:

export CXXFLAGS=-I$(pwd)/installed/x64-linux/include
export CFLAGS=-I$(pwd)/installed/x64-linux/include
export LDFLAGS=-L$(pwd)/installed/x64-linux/lib
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(pwd)/installed/x64-linux/lib/pkgconfig:$(pwd)/installed/x64-linux/share/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

On Windows dynamic triplets (such as x64-windows) you will also need to either copy the needed DLL files to the same folder as your executable or prepend the correct bin\ directory to your path to run any produced executables.