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researching the subject have difficulty determining which advice is up to date and which approaches have already been replaced by easier, better practices.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

Configuring the toolchain

For CMake projects, a toolchain consists of all of the tools used in building and running the application – for example, the working environment, the generator, the CMake executable itself, and the compilers.

Imagine what a less-experienced user feels when your build stops with some mysterious compilation and syntax errors. They have to dig into the source code and try to understand what happened. After an hour of debugging, they discover that the correct solution is to update their compiler. Could we provide a better experience for users and check if all of the required functions are present in the compiler before starting the build?

Sure! There are ways to specify these requirements. If the toolchain doesn't support all of the required features, CMake will stop early and show a clear message of what happened, asking the user to step in.

Setting the C++ standard

The first thing we might want to do is to set the C++ standard we require...