clarking / cmake-project-template

A base C++ project built with CMake

CMake C++ Project Template

A base C++ project built with documented CMakeLists.txt

This project is meant to be a ready-built setup that can be used to build a C++ project with a library, tests and executables that can be installed and exported for other users to import with find_package(CMakeDemo). Tests are written with the Catch library. There is a simple version of a find module in cmake for the project, FindCMakeDemo.cmake, that searches several environment variables and /usr/local for installations of CMakeDemo. There is also a baseline CMakeDemo-config.cmake file to support transitive dependencies when the project is found via find_package.

Prerequisites

• CMake >=3.1
• A C/C++ compiler (tested with gcc 7.5.0)
• Catch (v2.11.3 is included in tests/; overwrite with a more updated version)

How to use the template for your project

1. Fork the repo
2. Add your source files to the project. Place source code in src/, header files in include/, and test code in tests/.
3. Add the names of all source files in the project to the CMakeLists.txt in the src/, include/ and tests/ directories.
4. Rename all instances of CMakeDemo and CMAKEDEMO in all CMake-related files with your desired project name. This includes all CMakeLists.txt and the files in `cmake/'.
5. Build, compile and run your code.

Compiling, installing and running your code

To compile the project, run the following in the project root:

    mkdir build
    cd build
    cmake ..
    make

To install the project in /usr/local/, run the following in the build/ directory created above:

    make install

To run unit tests via CTest, again run the following in the build/ directory:

    make test

or

    ctest

To add additional dependencies via find_package, be sure to also include them in cmake/CMakeDemo-config.cmake. LAPACK is included as an example. To import a project built with this template in another CMake project, be sure to add the cmake/FindCMakeDemo.cmake file to that project's cmake/ directory.

File structure:

    ├── CMakeLists.txt
    ├── LICENSE
    ├── README.md
    ├── cmake
    │   ├── CMakeDemo-config.cmake
    │   └── FindCMakeDemo.cmake
    ├── include
    │   ├── CMakeLists.txt
    │   └── source_file.hpp
    ├── src
    │   ├── CMakeLists.txt
    │   └── source_file.cpp
    └── tests
        ├── CMakeLists.txt
        ├── catch.hpp
        └── test_cmake_demo.cpp

Helpful links:

• C++Now 2017: Daniel Pfeifer “Effective CMake" (also here are the slides themselves)
• foonathan::blog(): Tutorial: Easily supporting CMake install and find_package()
• Effective Modern CMake
• CMake Documentation: Exporting and Importing Targets
• An Introduction to Modern CMake