My understanding is that if I want to use a 3rd library, I need the header file path and the link obj path.
in CMake, I think a successful find_package() will set 2 variables: somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS and somelib_LIBRARIES.
But in many case, I only call
target_link_libraries(myexe
${somelib_LIBRARIES} )
and it seems to be sufficient. (somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS is not used)
My question is: Is my experience correct? somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS is not necessary?
If it's correct, can I say the reason is that target_link_libraries calls target_include_directories internally?
Thanks.
Will cmake target_link_libraries() call target_include_directories()?
If target_link_libraries is called with a library target name that has PUBLIC or INTERFACE include directories, then target_link_libraries will also add those include directories to the target. I.e. INTERFACE properties are "transitive" or are "inherited".
Is my experience correct? somelib_INCLUDE_DIRS is not necessary?
That 100% just depends on the specific library configuration. If the condition described above is satisfied, then yes. If not, somelib_LIBRARIES has libraries or link flags and not CMake library target names, or those library target names do not have any PUBLIC or INTERFACE include directories, etc...., then not.
Some find_package configuration files have been rewritten with add_library(... INTERFACE. Some not. It depends on the specific library CMake configuration. Consult the documentation and source code of the specific library CMake configuration files to know how to use it.
If it's correct, can I say the reason is that target_link_libraries calls target_include_directories internally?
Yes.
Related
I'm used to defining CMake target dependencies using the target_link_libraries() command. Recently, though, I've noticed the existence of another command, add_dependencies(). When should I use the latter rather than the former?
Note: I tried reading this question: target_link_libraries and add_dependencies - but the answers confused me. I understand I should not use both. But it's not entirely clear to me when I should use which.
add_dependencies should only be used where you need to establish a dependency in the build process that would otherwise not be present.
If a you want to influence the linker options, you use target_link_libraries.
For INTERFACE targets target_link_libraries should be used, even if it doesn't have an effect on the linker options. An example would be "linking" a header only library: This usually only results in include directories being inherited; you use target_link_libraries for this nonetheless.
A notable example of using add_dependencies would be to make sure MODULE targets dynamically loaded by an executable target get built when building the executable.
Looking around on the net I have seen a lot of code like this:
include(FindPkgConfig)
pkg_search_module(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2)
target_include_directories(app SYSTEM PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries(app ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
However that seems to be the wrong way about doing it, as it only uses the include directories and libraries, but ignored defines, library paths and other flags that might be returned by pkg-config.
What would be the correct way to do this and ensure that all compile and link flags returned by pkg-config are used by the compiled app? And is there a single command to accomplish this, i.e. something like target_use(app SDL2)?
ref:
include()
FindPkgConfig
First of, the call:
include(FindPkgConfig)
should be replaced with:
find_package(PkgConfig)
The find_package() call is more flexible and allows options such as REQUIRED, that do things automatically that one would have to do manually with include().
Secondly, manually calling pkg-config should be avoid when possible. CMake comes with a rich set of package definitions, found in Linux under /usr/share/cmake-3.0/Modules/Find*cmake. These provide more options and choice for the user than a raw call to pkg_search_module().
As for the mentioned hypothetical target_use() command, CMake already has that built-in in a way with PUBLIC|PRIVATE|INTERFACE. A call like target_include_directories(mytarget PUBLIC ...) will cause the include directories to be automatically used in every target that uses mytarget, e.g. target_link_libraries(myapp mytarget). However this mechanism seems to be only for libraries created within the CMakeLists.txt file and does not work for libraries acquired with pkg_search_module(). The call add_library(bar SHARED IMPORTED) might be used for that, but I haven't yet looked into that.
As for the main question, this here works in most cases:
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_check_modules(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2)
...
target_link_libraries(testapp ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
target_include_directories(testapp PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_compile_options(testapp PUBLIC ${SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER})
The SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER contains defines and other flags necessary for a successful compile. The flags SDL2_LIBRARY_DIRS and SDL2_LDFLAGS_OTHER are however still ignored, no idea how often that would become a problem.
More documentation here http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/FindPkgConfig.html
If you're using cmake and pkg-config in a pretty normal way, this solution works.
If, however, you have a library that exists in some development directory (such as /home/me/hack/lib), then using other methods seen here fail to configure the linker paths. Libraries that are not found under the typical install locations would result in linker errors, like /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lmy-hacking-library-1.0. This solution fixes the linker error for that case.
Another issue could be that the pkg-config files are not installed in the normal place, and the pkg-config paths for the project need to be added using the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable while cmake is running (see other Stack Overflow questions regarding this). This solution also works well when you use the correct pkg-config path.
Using IMPORTED_TARGET is key to solving the issues above. This solution is an improvement on this earlier answer and boils down to this final version of a working CMakeLists.txt:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.14)
project(ya-project C)
# the `pkg_check_modules` function is created with this call
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
# these calls create special `PkgConfig::<MODULE>` variables
pkg_check_modules(MY_PKG REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET any-package)
pkg_check_modules(YOUR_PKG REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET ya-package)
add_executable(program-name file.c ya.c)
target_link_libraries(program-name PUBLIC
PkgConfig::MY_PKG
PkgConfig::YOUR_PKG)
Note that target_link_libraries does more than change the linker commands. It also propagates other PUBLIC properties of specified targets like compiler flags, compiler defines, include paths, etc., so, use the PUBLIC keyword with caution.
It's rare that one would only need to link with SDL2. The currently popular answer uses pkg_search_module() which checks for given modules and uses the first working one.
It is more likely that you want to link with SDL2 and SDL2_Mixer and SDL2_TTF, etc... pkg_check_modules() checks for all the given modules.
# sdl2 linking variables
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_check_modules(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2 SDL2_ttf SDL2_mixer SDL2_image)
# your app
file(GLOB SRC "my_app/*.c")
add_executable(my_app ${SRC})
target_link_libraries(my_app ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
target_include_directories(my_app PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_compile_options(my_app PUBLIC ${SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER})
Disclaimer: I would have simply commented on Grumbel's self answer if I had enough street creds with stackoverflow.
Most of the available answers fail to configure the headers for the pkg-config library. After meditating on the Documentation for FindPkgConfig I came up with a solution that provides those also:
include(FindPkgConfig)
if(NOT PKG_CONFIG_FOUND)
message(FATAL_ERROR "pkg-config not found!" )
endif()
pkg_check_modules(<some-lib> REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET <some-lib>)
target_link_libraries(<my-target> PkgConfig::<some-lib>)
(Substitute your target in place of <my-target> and whatever library in place of <some-lib>, accordingly.)
The IMPORTED_TARGET option seems to be key and makes everything then available under the PkgConfig:: namespace. This was all that was required and also all that should be required.
There is no such command as target_use. But I know several projects that have written such a command for their internal use. But every project want to pass additional flags or defines, thus it does not make sense to have it in general CMake. Another reason not to have it are C++ templated libraries like Eigen, there is no library but you only have a bunch of include files.
The described way is often correct. It might differ for some libraries, then you'll have to add _LDFLAGS or _CFLAGS. One more reason for not having target_use. If it does not work for you, ask a new question specific about SDL2 or whatever library you want use.
If you are looking to add definitions from the library as well, the add_definitions instruction is there for that. Documentation can be found here, along with more ways to add compiler flags.
The following code snippet uses this instruction to add GTKGL to the project:
pkg_check_modules(GTKGL REQUIRED gtkglext-1.0)
include_directories(${GTKGL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_directories(${GTKGL_LIBRARY_DIRS})
add_definitions(${GTKGL_CFLAGS_OTHER})
set(LIBS ${LIBS} ${GTKGL_LIBRARIES})
target_link_libraries([insert name of program] ${LIBS})
I am trying to work on a project for a class and I want to use CMake to build the project. My current project looks like
|-bin
|-CMakeLists.txt
|-include
|-asio-1.12.2
|-chat_message.hpp
|-chat_message.cpp
|-CMakeLists.txt
|-src
|-Server.cpp
although my Server.cpp needs asio.hpp that is in /include/asio-1.12.2/include.
The professor has a makefile that compiles it with the flags
-DASIO_STANDALONE -Wall -O0 -g -std=c++11 -I./include -I./include/asio-1.12.2/include. My CMakeLists files look like this:
./CMakeLists.txt
CMAKE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 3.12)
PROJECT(Server VERSION 0.0.1)
SET(CPP_STANDARD 11)
SET(CPP_STANDARD_REQUIRED True)
ADD_SUBDIRECTORY(include)
ADD_EXECUTABLE(Server src/Server.cpp)
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(
Server PRIVATE
chat_message
asio
)
./include/CMakeLists.txt
ADD_LIBRARY(
chat_message
chat_message.cpp
chat_message.hpp
)
ADD_LIBRARY(
asio
asio-1.12.2/include/asio.cpp
asio-1.12.2/include/asio.hpp
)
TARGET_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(
chat_message PUBLIC "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include"
asio PUBLIC "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include/asio-1.12.2/include"
)
How would I link the asio header file to the Server.cpp file WITH the flags needed?
First of all, as Tzyvarev pointed out in the comments, you must split the target_include_directories() command into two separate commands. This will then propagate asio and chat_message's include directories to your Server target, which will turn add the correct include flags to the compiler flags.
Note: I'd recommend switching from CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR to CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR and altering your paths accordingly to make your life slightly easier if in future you decide to change your project structure, as you will usually keep a CMakeLists.txt file in the same directory as the sources for a target it creates.
The -DASIO_STANDALONE option can be added with a target_compile_definitions() call:
target_compile_definitions(asio PUBLIC ASIO_STANDALONE)
Note you do not need the -D - CMake will generate the correct compiler flag for you. Also, since this is a requirement for the asio target and all its consumers will need it, it should be added to that, rather than its consumers - it will then propagate to dependencies as needed.
In your CMakeLists.txt you have set the CPP_STANDARD and CPP_STANDARD_REQUIRED variables. The one's you're after are CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD and CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED respectively.
This will set the flag for all targets throughout your project.
There are different ways to add the error, optimization and debug symbols flags and which one you use depends on your use case. The following is not an exhaustive list.
If you want everyone who builds the library to have these, irrespectively of build configuration (debug/release/etc), you set the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS variable in your CMakeLists.txt
If you want everyone to have the flags, but only in certain build types, set the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_<CONFIG> variable, where <CONFIG> is the build type selected (DEBUG/RELEASE/MINSIZEREL/RELWITHDEBINFO are available by default)
If you don't want to force the flags upon everyone, before invoking CMake you can set the CXXFLAGS environment variable. But note that according to documentation this will be ineffective if CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS is set in your CMake scripts.
If you want to add flags to a single target, you can call target_compile_options on it, and set the appropriate visibility option to enable/disable propagation to consumers.
However in general you do need to think about portability when using these. For example GCC may support a certain flag which in Clang could be different.
Edit to address this comment
Since the header-only ASIO library does not like being compiled with the compiler definition mentioned above, there are two ways to address it:
Remove the ASIO_STANDALONE compiler flag
This will be the easiest thing to do from your point of view, but as a knock-on effect it will require you to have Boost installed on your system, as not having the flag above will cause the pre-processor to go through some Boost includes. There may be other effects, but this is the first one I encountered before moving on to the solution below.
Keep the flag, and use a CMake interface library
add_library() can allow you to add a target that does not actually produce any compiled objects/libraries/executables, but simply a logical CMake target that can posses properties just like any other ones - include directories, link libraries, etc. So as a minimum you could do this:
add_library(asio INTERFACE)
target_compile_options(asio INTERFACE ASIO_STANDALONE)
target_include_directories(asio INTERFACE <dir where asio.hpp lives>)
target_link_libraries(asio INTERFACE <threads>) # Using ASIO requires you link your final executable/library with your system's threading library (e.g. pthread on linux)
Then when you link another target with it like
target_link_libraries(any_lib PRIVATE asio)
any_lib will inherit all properties required to build with ASIO.
The solution you choose will be dictated by your use case, but if you have to do it the same way as your professor, then go the INTERFACE library route.
I've got a cmake project that pretty much looks like this:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
SET(CMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX "_d")
include_directories(../TransfunctionerProject)
include_directories(../TransmogrifierProject)
set(Libraries
ContinuumTransfunctioner
Transmogrifier
)
set(SourceFiles
Wrapper.cpp
Logger.cpp
)
add_library(Frobnigator SHARED ${SourceFiles})
add_library(FrobnigatorStatic STATIC ${SourceFiles})
set_target_properties(FrobnigatorStatic PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME Frobnigator)
target_link_libraries(Frobnigator ${Libraries})
Where ContinuumTransfunctioner and Transmogrifier projects include the debug postfix directive SET(CMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX "_d") so that libContinuumTransfunctioner_d.so and libTransmogrifier_d.so both exist.
The problem is that the current project appears to be linking against the static library without the _d suffix and complains:
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lContinuumTransfunctioner
The Libraries that you pass into the target_link_libraries call are interpreted as filenames, not as target names.
This is the unfortunate fallback for that call in CMake: If you pass a random string to it, that cannot be interpreted in a meaningful way, CMake will always assume it to be plain library name. Sometimes this is just what you want, but the name has to be an exact match for an existing library. The whole debug postfix magic will be lost here.
What you might have wanted to do was to pass a library target name instead. This will trigger a much smarter handling of the dependency and would solve your problem. However, that only works if the library is a known target in the context of the target_link_libraries call. You can easily check this as follows:
if(TARGET ContinuumTransfunctioner)
message("Library target name")
else()
message("Plain library name")
endif()
target_link_libraries(Frobnigator ContinuumTransfunctioner)
So how do you get to the target name case? This depends on how your build is structured. If the library is being built as part of your CMake run, simply make sure that the corresponding add_library call is performed from a subdirectory that is pulled in via add_subdirectory from the file that performs the target_link_libraries call.
If the library in question is an external dependency, you need to build an imported target that carries all the relevant information where to find the library files (including any potential debug postfixes). This can be a bit cumbersome to do manually, so if you can, you might want to use CMake's packaging mechanism to generate this automatically as part of the library's build process.
Here's the solution, courtesy of the good people on the cmake mailing list:
# Note:
# $<$<CONFIG:Debug>:_d> is called a generator expression.
# It outputs _d if the build is debug.
#
set(Libraries
ContinuumTransfunctioner$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:_d>
Transmogrifier$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:_d>
)
Looking around on the net I have seen a lot of code like this:
include(FindPkgConfig)
pkg_search_module(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2)
target_include_directories(app SYSTEM PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_link_libraries(app ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
However that seems to be the wrong way about doing it, as it only uses the include directories and libraries, but ignored defines, library paths and other flags that might be returned by pkg-config.
What would be the correct way to do this and ensure that all compile and link flags returned by pkg-config are used by the compiled app? And is there a single command to accomplish this, i.e. something like target_use(app SDL2)?
ref:
include()
FindPkgConfig
First of, the call:
include(FindPkgConfig)
should be replaced with:
find_package(PkgConfig)
The find_package() call is more flexible and allows options such as REQUIRED, that do things automatically that one would have to do manually with include().
Secondly, manually calling pkg-config should be avoid when possible. CMake comes with a rich set of package definitions, found in Linux under /usr/share/cmake-3.0/Modules/Find*cmake. These provide more options and choice for the user than a raw call to pkg_search_module().
As for the mentioned hypothetical target_use() command, CMake already has that built-in in a way with PUBLIC|PRIVATE|INTERFACE. A call like target_include_directories(mytarget PUBLIC ...) will cause the include directories to be automatically used in every target that uses mytarget, e.g. target_link_libraries(myapp mytarget). However this mechanism seems to be only for libraries created within the CMakeLists.txt file and does not work for libraries acquired with pkg_search_module(). The call add_library(bar SHARED IMPORTED) might be used for that, but I haven't yet looked into that.
As for the main question, this here works in most cases:
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_check_modules(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2)
...
target_link_libraries(testapp ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
target_include_directories(testapp PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_compile_options(testapp PUBLIC ${SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER})
The SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER contains defines and other flags necessary for a successful compile. The flags SDL2_LIBRARY_DIRS and SDL2_LDFLAGS_OTHER are however still ignored, no idea how often that would become a problem.
More documentation here http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/FindPkgConfig.html
If you're using cmake and pkg-config in a pretty normal way, this solution works.
If, however, you have a library that exists in some development directory (such as /home/me/hack/lib), then using other methods seen here fail to configure the linker paths. Libraries that are not found under the typical install locations would result in linker errors, like /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lmy-hacking-library-1.0. This solution fixes the linker error for that case.
Another issue could be that the pkg-config files are not installed in the normal place, and the pkg-config paths for the project need to be added using the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable while cmake is running (see other Stack Overflow questions regarding this). This solution also works well when you use the correct pkg-config path.
Using IMPORTED_TARGET is key to solving the issues above. This solution is an improvement on this earlier answer and boils down to this final version of a working CMakeLists.txt:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.14)
project(ya-project C)
# the `pkg_check_modules` function is created with this call
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
# these calls create special `PkgConfig::<MODULE>` variables
pkg_check_modules(MY_PKG REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET any-package)
pkg_check_modules(YOUR_PKG REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET ya-package)
add_executable(program-name file.c ya.c)
target_link_libraries(program-name PUBLIC
PkgConfig::MY_PKG
PkgConfig::YOUR_PKG)
Note that target_link_libraries does more than change the linker commands. It also propagates other PUBLIC properties of specified targets like compiler flags, compiler defines, include paths, etc., so, use the PUBLIC keyword with caution.
It's rare that one would only need to link with SDL2. The currently popular answer uses pkg_search_module() which checks for given modules and uses the first working one.
It is more likely that you want to link with SDL2 and SDL2_Mixer and SDL2_TTF, etc... pkg_check_modules() checks for all the given modules.
# sdl2 linking variables
find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_check_modules(SDL2 REQUIRED sdl2 SDL2_ttf SDL2_mixer SDL2_image)
# your app
file(GLOB SRC "my_app/*.c")
add_executable(my_app ${SRC})
target_link_libraries(my_app ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})
target_include_directories(my_app PUBLIC ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})
target_compile_options(my_app PUBLIC ${SDL2_CFLAGS_OTHER})
Disclaimer: I would have simply commented on Grumbel's self answer if I had enough street creds with stackoverflow.
Most of the available answers fail to configure the headers for the pkg-config library. After meditating on the Documentation for FindPkgConfig I came up with a solution that provides those also:
include(FindPkgConfig)
if(NOT PKG_CONFIG_FOUND)
message(FATAL_ERROR "pkg-config not found!" )
endif()
pkg_check_modules(<some-lib> REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET <some-lib>)
target_link_libraries(<my-target> PkgConfig::<some-lib>)
(Substitute your target in place of <my-target> and whatever library in place of <some-lib>, accordingly.)
The IMPORTED_TARGET option seems to be key and makes everything then available under the PkgConfig:: namespace. This was all that was required and also all that should be required.
There is no such command as target_use. But I know several projects that have written such a command for their internal use. But every project want to pass additional flags or defines, thus it does not make sense to have it in general CMake. Another reason not to have it are C++ templated libraries like Eigen, there is no library but you only have a bunch of include files.
The described way is often correct. It might differ for some libraries, then you'll have to add _LDFLAGS or _CFLAGS. One more reason for not having target_use. If it does not work for you, ask a new question specific about SDL2 or whatever library you want use.
If you are looking to add definitions from the library as well, the add_definitions instruction is there for that. Documentation can be found here, along with more ways to add compiler flags.
The following code snippet uses this instruction to add GTKGL to the project:
pkg_check_modules(GTKGL REQUIRED gtkglext-1.0)
include_directories(${GTKGL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_directories(${GTKGL_LIBRARY_DIRS})
add_definitions(${GTKGL_CFLAGS_OTHER})
set(LIBS ${LIBS} ${GTKGL_LIBRARIES})
target_link_libraries([insert name of program] ${LIBS})