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researching the subject have difficulty determining which advice is up to date and which approaches have already been replaced by easier, better practices.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

The basics of compilation

Compilation can be roughly described as a process of translating instructions written in a higher-level programming language to a low-level machine code. This allows us to create our applications using abstract concepts such as classes and objects and not bother with the tedious details of processor-specific assembly languages. We don't need to work directly with CPU registers, think about short or long jumps, and manage stack frames. Compiled languages are more expressive, readable, secure, and foster more maintainable code (but are still as performant as possible).

In C++, we rely on static compilation – an entire program has to be translated into native code before it is executed. This is an alternative approach to languages such as Java or Python, which compile a program on the fly with a special, separate interpreter every time a user runs it. There are certain advantages to each method. The policy of C++ is to provide as many high-level...