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researching the subject have difficulty determining which advice is up to date and which approaches have already been replaced by easier, better practices.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

Summary

Managing dependencies isn't complicated when we use modern, well-supported projects. In most cases, we'd simply rely on the library being available in the system and fall back to FetchContent if it's not. This would be appropriate if dependencies are relatively small and quick to build.

For some really big libraries out there (such as Qt), it would take a significant amount of time to build from the source. To provide automatic dependency resolution in these cases, we'd have to resort to package managers offering compiled versions of libraries matching the user's environment. External tools such as Apt or Conan aren't within the scope of this book, as they are either too system-dependent or too complex.

The good news is that most users know how to install dependencies that your project might require, as long as you provide them with clear instructions to do so. From this chapter, you already know how to detect packages installed in the system...