#Cmake commands how to#
#Cmake commands install#
#Cmake commands software#
#Cmake commands code#
#Cmake commands windows#

It tells CMake the name of your project and lets you reference the name later on if necessary. project(SimpleProgram)sets the name of your project.In this case, 3.10 was added as it’s now a few years old and most people should have a newer version of CMake. It tells CMake the minimum version of CMake a user needs to have to build the project. cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)has to be added to the top of your CMakeLists.Let’s dive into the definition and purpose of each of the lines in the CmakeLists.txt: Luckily, that is all you need for a simple executable build. Given the directory setup, we will then create a text file called CMakeLists.txt inside simple_programwith the following contents: cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10) The directory simple_program is then the root of my project as it holds all the files.

#Cmake commands code#

Suppose I create a directory called simple_program which will hold the source file, main.cpp, containing the code shown above. This file must be in the root of your project (the main directory of your project) and it must contain a couple of lines for CMake to do its job.īefore getting down to business, let’s analyse the project directory structure. int main()īut how do we compile this with the help of CMake? By writing the CMakeLists.txt required by CMake. It will simply run and immediately terminate with no errors. The simplest CPP program taken from a previous post and shown in the code box below is indeed not very useful.

Finding third-party libraries to be included in your project.

Finding system libraries to be included in your project.

Not only does CMake let us write projects for multiple platforms, but it also provides tons of nice utility functions that can be very useful when building a project, such as: Describing the structure of your code using CMake is all you need to do.

#Cmake commands windows#

Therefore, the programs you write on your Windows machine can be easily ported to Linux or other operating systems, given you are using CMake and standard C++.

#Cmake commands software#

Advantages Of Using CMakeīy allowing users to universally define the structure of their projects, and decoupling the build system from the representation of your project, CMake allows us to cleanly develop software for multiple environments and platforms. Similarly, if you are developing a project on Linux, CMake will generate the Makefile to completely compile all the executables and libraries in your project. Or even better, Visual Studio, like many other IDEs, can integrate directly with your project’s CMake and directly compile your programs and libraries, without the need for the “middle man” solution file. It creates the necessary instruction files for your system to build your project.įor example, if you are developing a program for Windows and you happen to have Visual Studio installed, CMake can generate a Visual Studio solution that you can use to compile the project. What Does It Do Exactly?ĬMake is a build system generator.

#Cmake commands how to#

This is where CMake comes in: it lets you define the representation of your project, and how to build it in a universal way, meaning that any environment with CMake support can compile your programs and libraries. sln) file that tells Windows how to compile your program. Linux and other operating systems will not know how to “interpret” the Visual Studio solution (. However, what happens if you try and take your CPP project over to a Linux machine? You certainly will not be able to compile it because all you are left with, from the OS point of view, are files. Compiling and running your program is as easy as pressing the “play” button in the IDE.

#Cmake commands install#

Writing software for Windows is very easy: just download and install Microsoft Visual Studio and off you go. Unsurprisingly, these are not the only IDEs available that can build C++ programs and libraries, but what is the one thing that most popular IDEs have in common? CMake support. Maybe MS Visual Studio, VS Code, or CLion. If you have just started learning C++, you are probably using a popular IDE to edit and build (compile) your programs. We have written the simplest C++ program, but how do we build it? In this article, I will give a brief description of CMake, a build automation tool that allows users to build software on different platforms.