Book Image

Modern CMake for C++

By : Rafał Świdziński
5 (2)
Book Image

Modern CMake for C++

5 (2)
By: Rafał Świdziński

Overview of this book

Creating top-notch software is an extremely difficult undertaking. Developers researching the subject have difficulty determining which advice is up to date and which approaches have already been replaced by easier, better practices. At the same time, most online resources offer limited explanation, while also lacking the proper context and structure. This book offers a simpler, more comprehensive, experience as it treats the subject of building C++ solutions holistically. Modern CMake for C++ is an end-to-end guide to the automatization of complex tasks, including building, testing, and packaging. You'll not only learn how to use the CMake language in CMake projects, but also discover what makes them maintainable, elegant, and clean. The book also focuses on the structure of source directories, building targets, and packages. As you progress, you’ll learn how to compile and link executables and libraries, how those processes work, and how to optimize builds in CMake for the best results. You'll understand how to use external dependencies in your project – third-party libraries, testing frameworks, program analysis tools, and documentation generators. Finally, you'll get to grips with exporting, installing, and packaging for internal and external purposes. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use CMake confidently on a professional level.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introducing CMake
5
Section 2: Building With CMake
10
Section 3: Automating With CMake

Using static checkers

Static program analysis is the process of checking the source code without actually running the compiled version. The rigorous application of static checkers dramatically improves the quality of the code: it becomes more consistent and less bug-prone. The chance of introducing known security vulnerabilities is reduced too. The C++ community has created dozens of static checkers: Astrée, Clang-Tidy, CLazy, CMetrics, Cppcheck, Cpplint, CQMetrics, ESBMC, FlawFinder, Flint, IKOS, Joern, PC-Lint, Scan-Build, Vera++, and so on.

Many of them recognize CMake as the industry standard and will provide out-of-the-box support (or an integration tutorial). Some build engineers don't want to go to the trouble of writing CMake code, and they add static checkers by including external modules available online, such as those collected by Lars Bilke in his GitHub repository: https://github.com/bilke/cmake-modules.

It's no wonder, as the general misconception...