[ARROW-16914] [Docs][C++] Add example of using ExternalProject_Add to use Arrow

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 8.0.0
• Component/s: C++, Documentation
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/32234

Language

C++

• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Will Jones
• Created: 27/Jun/22 16:05
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 11:47

Description

We've given advice to use ExternalProject_Add to build Arrow from source within a users CMake project. (Correct me if I am wrong that that is the preferred method now.) But I found it non-trivial to implement this.

We should add a simple example of doing this to the User Guide. We should also mention that we don't support add_subdirectory as that seems to be a common gotcha as well.

This might overlap with ARROW-9740, but I don't quite understand what that issue is proposing.