I'm learning CMake for building C++ code, and struggling with the following concept. On my root level directory I have some cpp files and a CMakeLists.txt that succesfully generates some thrift code in a gen-cpp directory. My root level CMakeLists.txt contains :
include_directories("path-to-root"/gen-cpp). (along with the relevant thrift auto-generating and includes.
Everything compiles ok but I get run time dynamic library linked errors for undefined symbol referencing a class defined in the gen-cpp directory. When I move the files in the directory to the root level, it runs fine. what am I missing? (I had also adjusted the #include in the root level cpp directorie s to point to "path-to-root"/gen-cpp).
Is this a misunderstanding of using include_directory, where I should be using add_subdirectory. If the latter, would the code in gen-cpp needs its own CMakeLists.txt? Why is this additional file not needed, when the contents of said directory are root level?
add_subdirectory(source_dir): Used to add a subdirectory to the build. There is also a CMakeLists.txt file in the source_dir. This CMakeLists.txt file in the specified source directory will be processed immediately by CMake before processing in the current input file continues beyond this command.
include_directories(dir): Add the given directories to those the compiler uses to search for include files. These directories are added to the directory property INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES for the current CMakeLists file.
The include_directories() is used for adding headers search paths (-I flag) and add_subdirectory() will make no difference in this case.
I suppose, you need to list *.cpp files from gen-cpp folder in add_executable() or add_library() calls, in which you wish these symbols to be.
Alternatively, you can compile all thrift sources into the library and link it with your code.
Related
I tries to use FOREACH to generated several pb files. And make two list names PROTO_SRCS & PROTO_HDRS like below.
I can use it in the main CMakeLists. Like add_executable(a SHARED ${PROTO_SRCS} main.cpp).
But I can not use this param in subdirectories to make a library. when I type "cmake .." in main CMakelists build dir. It shown that "Cannot find source file: a.pb.cc".
main CMakeLists.txt
add_library(xxx SHARED ${PROTO_SRCS})
add_subdirectory(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/back back)
in src/back CMakeLists.txt
add_executable(yyy ${PROTO_SRCS})
and I can use message to show ${PROTO_SRCS} in subdir so it pass into successfully.
Please help me to point out the problem. Thx a lot
The issue is that in CMake versions older than 3.20 the GENERATED property of source files is only visible in the directory where it is set. Thus, when you add the protobuf-generated source files to a target defined in a different directory, CMake will no longer know that these are files generated during the build. Consequently, CMake will try to locate these files at configuration time, when they obviously do not exist yet.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing there is only a release candidate for CMake 3.20 and no official release yet. So depending on whether you need to coordinate with other coworkers or whether you're working on this project on your own it might not be feasible to use the release candidate.
If you can't use it, the alternative is to create an object library via add_library(protobuf_objs OBJECT ${PROTO_SRCS}) in the directory where you generate the files and to use target_sources(xxx PRIVATE $<TARGET_OBJECTS:protobuf_objs>) and target_sources(yyy PRIVATE $<TARGET_OBJECTS:protobuf_objs>) instead of adding the ${PROTO_SRCS} as source files to these targets directly.
I am looking for a way to tell CMake to make an include directory appear under another name to the compiler.
Let's say I have a project that needs code from a foreign library. This code resides in a directory foreignLib-1.5.0_build123456 in my project's root directory. From time to time I will want to update this library and in this process change the library directory name.
I want to reference this directory as foreignLib in my C++ source files. I want to be able to write
#include "foreignLib/include/lib.h"
and CMake should tell my compiler to translate this to
#include "foreignLib-1.5.0_build123456/include/lib.h"
Now I am wondering:
Does a feature like this exist in CMake?
If yes, how do I use it?
If yes, which compilers are supported?
I'd probably just copy the entire include directory into my build tree and make that available.
A decent way of doing that is to use file(GLOB_RECURSE ...) to gather a list of files in the includes folder, then use configure_file(<input> <output> COPYONLY) to copy them to the build tree.
By using configure_file, the files in the build tree are only replaced as required. This means that re-running CMake won't automatically make these files appear out-of-date to the build tool, hence avoiding an unnecessary recompilation.
set(ForeignLibName foreignLib-1.5.0_build123456)
set(ForeignLibRoot ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/${ForeignLibName})
file(GLOB_RECURSE IncludeFiles RELATIVE ${ForeignLibRoot} ${ForeignLibRoot}/*)
foreach(IncludeFile ${IncludeFiles})
configure_file(${ForeignLibRoot}/${IncludeFile}
${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${ForeignLibName}/foreignLib/${IncludeFile}
COPYONLY)
endforeach()
include_directories(${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${ForeignLibName})
This should allow you to do:
#include "foreignLib/include/lib.h"
When you update the foreign library, you'd have to ensure that you also updated the CMakeLists.txt so that CMake re-runs the next time you go to build. Updating the CMakeLists.txt should only involve changing the single line set(ForeignLibName ...).
You could have a look at Cmake's configure_file: Rename your source file into yourfile.cpp.in and do
#include ${DIR_TO_LIB}/include/xy.h
In your CMakeLists, you set the variable DIR_TO_LIB somehow (by parsing command line or something) and issue
configure_file(yourfile.cpp.in, yourfile.cpp)
This will yield yourfile.cpp with the correct path set.
This is probably not exactly what you intended, but I think it would work.
As part of the build process generate an include file at a well known location (later on called "boilerplate/foreignLib_lib.h") with the real include path.
your code file:
#include "boilerplate/foreignLib_lib.h"
boilerplate/foreignLib_lib.h:
#include "foreignLib-1.5.0_build123456/include/lib.h"
Use CMake's include_directories statement or add an -I switch to the *_CXX_FLAGS to add the current foreignLib path to your include path.
I have been struggling with this for quite a while, and my adventures with cmake have only resulted in hackish solutions that I am pretty sure are not correct.
I created a library that consists of several files, as follows:
-libfolder
-codepart1folder
-CMakeLists.txt
-codepart1.cpp
-codepart1.hpp
-codepart2folder
-codepart3folder
-lib.cpp
-lib.hpp
-CMakeLists.txt
I wrote a CMakeLists file to compile the library (after some experimentation), and I can generate a lib.a file. Now I would like to include this code as a library in other projects, and access it through the interface in lib.hpp. What is the best way to do this, in terms of directory structure, and what I need to put into CMakeLists.txt in my root project?
My current attempt has been to add -libfolder as a subfolder to my current project, and add the commands:
include_directories(${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libfolder)
link_directories(${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/libfolder)
add_subdirectory(libfolder)
target_link_libraries(project lib)
When I run make, the library compiles fine, but when project.cpp compiles, it complains that it cannot find codepart1.hpp (which is included in lib.hpp, included from project.cpp).
I suspect that this is the wrong way about doing this, but I cannot wade through the CMake documentation and find a good tutorial on setting up projects like this. Please help, CMake gurus!
The clean way to import one CMake project into another is via the find_package command. The package declaration is done by using the export command. An advantage of using find_package is that it eliminates the need to hard-code paths to the package's files.
Regarding the missing hpp file, you didn't include codepart1folder, so it's not on the include path.
Ok, so after consulting a coworker of mine who is a CMake guru, it seems CMake does not have support for what I am trying to do, leaving one with 3 options:
Add all of the dependencies to the parent projects CMakeLists.txt - not very clean, but it will get the thing to work. You'll have to do this for every project you add the code to, and go back and fix things if your library changes.
clean up your library headers. This is done through some compiler hackery. The idea is to forward-declare every class, and use only pointers or boost::shared_ptr, and then include the dependencies only in the cpp file. That way you can build the cpp file using all the findpackage stuff, and you get the bonus of being able to use the lib by only including the header and linking to the library.
Look into build systems. Having portable code and fast code compilation with complex dependencies is not a solved problem! From my investigations it turned out to be quite complicated. I ended up adopting my coworkers build system which he created himself in cmake, using things he picked up from Google.
Looking at your post you don't seem to add 'codepart1folder' to the includes anywhere. How are you including codepart1.hpp as:
#include <codepart1.hpp>
#include "codepart1folder/codepart1.hpp"
I don't think there is a standard accepted way to structure cmake projects. I've looked at a bunch of cmake repos and they tend to have differences. Personally I do the following:
-project
CMakeLists.txt
-build
-cmake
OptionalCmakeModule.cmake
-src
-Main
Main.cpp
Main.hpp
-DataStructs
SomeTree.hpp
SomeObject.hpp
-Debug
Debug.hpp
-UI
Window.hpp
Window.cpp
Basically that dumps all the source code into 1 directory, then you perform an out of source build with: 'mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && make' in the projects root folder.
If you have separate libs as part of your project, then you might want a separate libs directory with another subfolder for your specific lib.
I have some of my repos on: https://github.com/dcbishop/ if you want to look at the CMakeLists.txt files.
The main problems with my project structure are that I use the FILE_GLOB which is apparently the 'wrong' way to do things (if you add files after running 'cmake ..' then they won't be picked up hen you do a 'make'). I haven't figured out what the 'right' way to do it is (from what I can see it involves keeping a separate list of files) I also only use 1 CMakeLists.txt file.
Some projects also choose to separate their cpp and hpp files into separate directories. So you would have an include and src folders (at least for the hpp files that are intended to be used externally). I think that would mainly be for projects that are mainly large libraries. Would also make installing header files much easier.
You are probably missing
include_directories(${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libfolder/codepart1folder)
In such a case you might want to set( CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR on) to add all folders to the include directory path variable.
Check cmake's output on the command line whether the correct include folders are set or not. Additionally you can always use message() as "print debugging" for cmake variables.
In case of include directories however you need to read the directory property to see what is actually in the include directories.
get_property(inc_dirs DIRECTORY PROPERTY INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
message("inc_dirs = ${inc_dirs}")
I hope this helps you figuring out what is missing.
Edit
I just saw your comment about added codepart1folder in the libfolder. It is only available in the libfolder's include_directory path and not propagated to the root folder.
Since the include codepart1.hpp is present in the lib.hpp however you need to have it also available in the project path otherwise you will get missing declaration errors when you build your project.
I have a C++ project where I've used directories as more of an organizational element -- the way one might use packages in Java or directories in PHP. Directories are not intended to be self-sufficient elements, but rather just a way of organizing the whole of the project and keeping me from being overwhelmed by sources. How can I construct my CMakeLists.txt files to deal with this? Making the directories libraries doesn't seem to fit here, since they are all interdependent and not intended to be used that way.
As a related issue, most of the examples I've seen of multiple subdirectories in CMake (and there aren't very many of those) have ignored or glossed over the issue of setting include_directories, which is something I've been having trouble with. Short of combing my source files to determine which file depends on which and in what directory, is there anyway to just set all directories under /src/ as potential include directories and let CMake work out which ones are actually dependent?
Here's an example structure:
--src
--top1
--mid1
--bot1
--src1.cpp
--hdr1.h
--bot2
--src2.cpp
--hdr2.h
--mid2
--bot3
--src3.cpp
--src4.cpp
--hdr3.h
--top2
--mid3
--src5.cpp
--hdr4.h
So on and so forth. How can I structure my CMakeLists.txt files to handle this sort of structure?
Since the directory structure in your project is just there to keep your files organized, one approach is to have a CMakeLists.txt that automatically finds all sources files in the src directory and also adds all directories as include directories that have a header file in them. The following CMake file may serve as a starting point:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.12)
project (Foo)
file (GLOB_RECURSE Foo_SOURCES CONFIGURE_DEPENDS "src/*.cpp")
file (GLOB_RECURSE Foo_HEADERS CONFIGURE_DEPENDS "src/*.h")
set (Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS "")
foreach (_headerFile ${Foo_HEADERS})
get_filename_component(_dir ${_headerFile} PATH)
list (APPEND Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS ${_dir})
endforeach()
list (REMOVE_DUPLICATES Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS)
add_executable(FooExe ${Foo_SOURCES})
target_include_directories(FooExe PRIVATE ${Foo_INCLUDE_DIRS})
The two file(GLOB_RECURSE ... commands determine the set of source and header files. The foreach loop computes the set of include directories from the list of all header files. The CONFIGURE_DEPENDS flags tells CMake to re-run the glob command at build time.
One drawback with computing the set of source files is that CMake will not automatically detect when new files are added to your source tree. You manually have to re-create your build files then.
Though #sakra gave a good answer to this question, I believe it is more proper to approach it more in depth.
We want to separate our code into modules and libraries for many reasons. Like code encapsulation, re usability, easier debugging etc. This idea would propagate in compiling process too.
In other word, we want to divide the compilation process into little compilation steps, each belong to one module. So every module must have its own compilation procedure. This is why we use one CMakeLists.txt file per directory. Hence every directory would have its own compilation commands and there would be one master CMakeLists.txt file in the root directory of your project.
Here is an example. Consider the following structure of a project:
src/
|
- main.cpp
|
_sum/
|
- sum.h
|
- sum.cpp
We would have one CmakeLists.txt Per directory. First directory is the root directory of the project which src/ folder is in it. here is content for that file:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.4)
project(multi_file)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "-Wall")
add_subdirectory(src)
Next CMakeLists.txt would located in src/ directory:
add_subdirectory("sum")
add_executable(out main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(out sum)
And the last one will be in the sum/ directory:
add_library(sum SHARED sum.cpp)
I hope this helps. I created a github repository in case you feel you need to see the code or you need further explanation.
I'm not an expert on CMake but since there are no other answers I'll take a look at the documentaton and give it a go. Organizing source and include files in different directories is pretty much the norm.
It looks like CMake allows you to give a list of include directories:
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/cmake-2-8-docs.html#command:include_directories
So something like:
include_directories("src/top1/mid1/bot1" "src/top1/mid1/bot2/" ... )
These are passed to the compiler so it can find the header files and will be passed for each of the source files. So any of your source files should be able to include any of the header files (which I think is what you're asking for).
Similar to that you should be able to list all your source files in the add_executable command:
add_executable(name "src/top1/mid1/bot1/src1.cpp" "src/top1/id1/bot2/src2.cpp" ...)
So this would be a naive way of getting everything to build. Each source file will be compiled and will look for headers in all those directories and then the object files will get linked together. Consider if there is any way of simplifying this such that you don't need so many include folders, maybe there are only a few common header files that need to be referenced by all source files. If things get more complex you can buiild sub-hierarchies into libraries etc. Also consider seperating source files and headers (e.g. in src and include).
I'm new to CMake and re-learning C++, so I hope these are appropriate questions. I have a project in directory /projects/A and some .h files in /projects/include/open-source-project-1 that the A project depends on.
Sample Hierarchy:
/projects
/CMakeLists.txt
/A
/CMakeLists.txt
/a.cpp
/B
/CMakeLists.txt
/include
/open-source-project-1
/includeMe.h
/open-source-project-2
Do I need to use a cmake include_directories() command? If so, in what CMakeLists.txt file do I need to put it in? (I've tried many variations)
Do I need a different cmake command?
If I put that in the top most level CMakeLists.txt, should that take care of all occurences of #include in the .cpp files for the A project or B project?
Is this a typical setup for a c++ project? Does it seem logical?
Your top-level CMakeLists.txt file is not needed unless all of the projects are directly inter-related somehow or have otherwise unresolvable dependencies. Unrelated projects should not include each other, nor do they need a parent list file.
If A and B are separate projects, ./A/CMakeLists.txt and ./B/CMakeLists.txt should contain at least this line:
include_directories(../include)
Otherwise, if A and B are parts of a larger single project, then it is appropriate to put these lines in the top-level CMakeLists.txt files:
include_directories(include)
add_subdirectory(A)
add_subdirectory(B)
Only for separate projects. One invocation of cmake will create one build tree. One project to a build tree is all you need.
No. Only if the top-level lists file contains an add_subdirectory directive will it affect the other list files.
No, this is atypical.