GCC

CMake

CMake is similar to make. It uses a project description to automate the compilation of a project. The difference is that CMake uses a platform independent description of the project, called a cmake list.

Example cmake list (named CMakeLists.txt by default):

# cmake build file

PROJECT(Example)

CMAKE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 2.6)

# header and module list

SET(LIB_HDRS
   module.h
   # insert additional module headers here
   )

SET(LIB_SRCS
   module.c
   # insert additional module files here
   )

# library

SET(LIB_NAME ${PROJECT_NAME})

INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR})

ADD_LIBRARY(${LIB_NAME} ${LIB_SRCS} ${LIB_HDRS})

# executable

ADD_EXECUTABLE(main main.c)
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(main
   ${LIB_NAME}
   )
[Get Code]

Use the above cmake list file as a template for your own projects. Substitute the first two set commands with the names of your own projects’ headers and modules.

  • On Unix, type “cmake .” on the console and the cmake program will create a Makefile. Then type “make” on the console and the make program will create the corresponding executable.
    • To install cmake, type sudo apt-get install cmake on the terminal.
  • On a Mac, cmake behaves identical to Unix as decribed above, except that it is recommended to install cmake from source:
    • get the source tarball from cmake.org
    • in the following, let the source tarball be cmake-3.2.1.tar.gz
    • tar zxf cmake-3.2.1.tar.gz
    • cd cmake-3.2.1
    • ./configure && make && sudo make install
  • On Windows, open the CMake GUI and specify the location of the cmake list file. Then press the configure and generate button twice and the cmake program will create a Microsoft Visual Studio project and solution file. Open the solution file and compile the project in the Visual Studio GUI.
    • To install cmake, download the most recent installer exe from cmake.org.

In summary, CMake is a meta make tool. It creates make instructions for the make tools of a particular platform utilizing the same project description for all supported platforms. As a result, project maintenance is limited to a single cmake file and does not have to be performed for a multitude of different project files used by different build tools on different platforms.

For those reasons, CMake is the open-source standard for multi-platform development.

CMake is also compatible with IDEs like KDevelop or QtCreator.

← Makefiles | ●

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