Avoid quotes when using CMake to pass the output of a process as compilation options for a specific target

I have a problem with CMake: I am using execute_process()

to set a variable and I want this variable to pass it as parameters to the compiler. CMake sets quotes around the variable so that the compiler receives incorrect input.

To be specific: I only need to compile SDL2 for a specific purpose.

# CMakeLists.txt
execute_process(COMMAND "sdl2-config" "--cflags" OUTPUT_VARIABLE SDL2_CFLAGS OUTPUT_STRIP_TRAILING_WHITESPACE)
target_compile_options(SpecialTarget PUBLIC ${SDL2_CFLAGS})

      

        
        
        
      

    

Conclusion sdl2-config --cflags

:

-I/usr/include/SDL2 -D_REENTRANT

      

        
        
        
      

    

CMake now invokes the compiler like this:

/usr/bin/c++ ... "-I/usr/include/SDL2 -D_REENTRANT" ...

      

        
        
        
      

    

Of course it doesn't work. I need to get rid of quotes.

If using

add_definitions(${SDL2_CFLAGS})

      

        
        
        
      

    

everything is working. But I need it target_compile_options

because I want the parameters to be not for all purposes.