How do I get CMake to link with an external library? [duplicate] - cmake

This question already has answers here:
CMake link to external library
(6 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I'm trying to get CMake under CLion to build a simple program that links with the curl library. From the command line it builds like this:
gcc main.c -l curl
I can't get CMake to link with the curl library however:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.15)
project(http_examples_c C)
set(CMAKE_C_STANDARD 99)
add_executable(http_examples_c main.c)
target_link_libraries(/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurl.a)
How do I tell CMake to just link with the curl library?

When using target_link_libraries(), you need to tell CMake to link the library to a specific target you have already defined. Try something like this instead:
target_link_libraries(http_examples_c PUBLIC /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurl.a)
As commented, you shouldn't need to put the full path to the curl library in your system path, unless you are trying to let CMake choose this curl library over another curl library that may also be in your system. Given your gcc command simply used curl, you could likely simplify this call to:
target_link_libraries(http_examples_c PUBLIC curl)

Related

How to write CMakeLists.txt with NOT using 'MSBuild.exe' on windows? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
cmake: Selecting a generator within CMakeLists.txt
(5 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I'm trying to write the CMakeLists.txt for building a custom targets only project.
That is, it's not for the usual C/C++ project; all build recipes are provided using ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND() and ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(). The reason why I'm using CMake is to manage dependencies between build target stuffs and utilize the advantages of incremental build.
The problem is, when I execute cmake CMakeLists.txt on Windows cmd.exe, it tries to find Windows SDK or MSBuild.exe -- which are never needed for building targets in the project.
cmd.exe> cmake CMakeLists.txt
-- Selecting Windows SDK version 10.0.18362.0 to target Windows 10.0.17134.
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:6 (PROJECT):
Failed to run MSBuild Command:
MSBuild.exe
to get the value of VCTargetsPath:
Cannot find file
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log"
The header of the CMakeLists.txt is:
cmake_minimum_required ( VERSION 3.0 )
set ( CMAKE_GENERATOR "Unix Makefile" )
set ( CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE true )
# Project name
project ( "awesome-project" NONE ) # <language>=NONE for skipping compiler check
...
As I mentioned above, all recipes of the build targets are provided in the CMakeLists.txt; neither Windows SDK nor Visual Studio is required.
I think there is some CMake directives for skipping the invocation of MSBuild, but I could not find it. How can I write the CMakeLists.txt in this case?
As the answer here suggests, setting the CMAKE_GENERATOR variable in the CMake file has no effect when running CMake for the first time. CMake will use the default generator on the first attempt, if no generator is provided via the command line or via environment variable. So try adding the command line option -G to specify the generator like this:
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" .
Then, on subsequent CMake runs, the generator setting will be cached and you no longer need to provide the -G generator option.
As a side note, you can simply provide the path to your top-level CMakeLists.txt file. So if it's in the current directory, you can just use . for the path.
The documentation is pretty explicit The value of this variable should never be modified by project code. A generator may be selected via the cmake(1) -G option, interactively in cmake-gui(1), or via the CMAKE_GENERATOR environment variable.
You can always make a CMake script that runs CMake with the proper options to create the project.
You may want to keep watch on CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE because This variable is a cache entry initialized (to FALSE) by the project() command. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work as shown in your script. Instead You'd probably have to add a -D option on the command line to set it. https://bytefreaks.net/programming-2/make-building-with-cmake-verbose

Custom Flags for CMake [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Passing an argument to CMAKE via command prompt
(2 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
Not sure the right way to ask this, but basically, I have a project that I need to build in two slightly different ways. I could have two CMake files and keep them in sync, but I'd prefer to just have one and control it via a command line flag.
Something like cmake --configure . --flag vs cmake --configure ..
And then in the CMakeFile:
ifdef(flag)
line_that_is_different
endif()
to toggle the line on/off.
Obviously this isn't valid CMake, but is there some way to do this in Cmake?
From the command line:
cmake -Dflag=true
cmake -Dflag=On
cmake -Dflag=1
and in your cmake script:
if(flag)
message(STATUS "FLAG IS ON")
endif()
See the cmake manual and cmake if command.

CMake build & link to library without installing to /usr/local or elsewhere

I'm trying to include an external library in a build environment that uses CMake. I'm not trying to install it on the local system (in fact I'd rather not do that, I don't want /usr/local clogged up with all kinds of libraries); I'd just like to have the resulting libxml2.a available for linking with my executable. I can build it fine with the following in CMakeLists.txt:
set (LIBXML_PATH ${MY_SOURCE_DIR}/libxml2-2.9.1)
add_custom_target (build_libxml ALL
COMMENT "Building libxml"
COMMAND ./configure --prefix=/tmp
COMMAND make
WORKING_DIRECTORY ${LIBXML_PATH}
)
But I'm still having trouble with the following:
1) Is this the right approach in the first place, for the general purpose of getting libraries built with configure and make into a CMake environment?
2) How do I get the resulting library (i.e. libxml2.a) under my build output directory?
3) How can I link to that library for my executable builds?
I tried a fiddly solution with
ADD_LIBRARY( xml2 STATIC libxml2.a )
but it seems like there must be a better way than hauling a whole library's contents into… a library.
Thanks.
You need to make it clearer to CMake what is going on here. All it can see now is that you have some custom command that it will run every time. Instead of using add_custom_target with COMMAND, I've found it better to use add_custom_command.
Something like this:
set (LIBXML_PATH ${MY_SOURCE_DIR}/libxml2-2.9.1)
add_custom_command(
OUTPUT libxml2.a
COMMENT "Building libxml"
COMMAND ./configure --prefix=/tmp
COMMAND make
WORKING_DIRECTORY ${LIBXML_PATH}
)
target_link_libraries(your-program libxml2.a)
By doing it this way, CMake can understand that your custom command's essential product is libxml2.a, and when CMake sees something depending on that, it will run the command (if the library doesn't exist already).

CMake to produce -L<path> -l<lib> link flags for static libraries

I'm using CMake 2.8 in order to build an application based on MQX OS (using CodeWarrior).
The CMake project basically builds a set of static libraries (let's say LIB1 and LIB2).
I then reference these libraries in the final executable cmake rule:
target_add_executable(X ${some_sources})
target_link_libraries(X LIB1 LIB2)
My problem is that some symbols are defined in more that one library.
Thus, a link command like:
mwldarm <args> -o <output> <objects> /path/to1/libLIB1.a /path/to2/libLIB2.a
would lead to multiple definition of symbols error.
Instead, I would like CMake to generate a link command like:
mwldarm <args> -o <output> <objects> -L/path/to1 -L/path/to2 -lLIB -lLIB2
Question: How to get the following variables from CMAKE?
Libraries directories flags (ex: -L/path/to1 -L/path/to2)
Libraries link flags (ex: -lLIB -lLIB2)
I've read stuff concerning RPATH but it seems to concern shared libraries only. Am I right?
Thanks for advance.
I do appreciate.
It seems that policy CMP0003 may be what you need.
To use it add the following line near the beginning of your CMakeLists.txt:
CMAKE_POLICY( SET CMP0003 OLD )
Another possibility is to directly set the dependencies and search path, however it's not the cleanest way. Assuming you libraries are called liba.a and libb.a, then:
LINK_DIRECTORIES( ${paths_to_search_for} )
TARGET_ADD_EXECUTABLE(X ${some_sources} )
ADD_DEPENDENCIES(X LIB1 LIB2)
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(X a b )
Note that in this case a and b are not cmake targets, therefore a little machinery is needed to correctly set the dependencies.
Part of the design of CMake is that it links with full paths. Why is that a problem?
Toggling the behavior with the policy is not the correct approach.
http://www.cmake.org/gitweb?p=cmake.git;a=commitdiff;h=cd4fa896b
I think CMP0003 is used to switch on/off the function of adding searching path automatically as described in the official document
Libraries linked via full path no longer produce linker search paths.
rather than about replacing the path name with -l.
When linking a library, if the library is a target CMake known, CMake always replaces related -L and -l options with the library's path name. This may not be a problem for linking static libraries. But for a executable to link a shared library, it's may be a problem. Then I found a hacking method, code like below, to solve the problem linking a shread library using -L and `-l' rather than absolute path.
# Find out the link.txt
set(LINK_TXT "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${ToLinkLib}/CMakeFiles/${ToLinkLIb}.dir/link.txt")
# Add the searching path into link command
add_custom_command(TARGET ${YourTarget} PRE_BUILD
COMMAND sed ARGS -ie "\"s;[[:blank:]]-l; -L${LIBRARY_OUTPUT_PATH} -l;\"" ${LINK_TXT}
DEPENDS ${LINK_TXT}
COMMENT "Hacking CMake: edit __link.txt__ to use -l instead of path to link internal library ...")
# NOTE: Dont't missing the `-l'.
target_link_libraries(${YourTarget} -l${ToLinkLib})
Of course, this is just a hacking so may not be working well with all versions of CMake.
UPDATED: why linking a shared library may be a problem?
When I run a executable cross compiled for android, which linking a shared library built by the same CMake scripts, I've encounter a problem of linking failed. After I used the above hacking method to get a new version, I can run my executable with a command like below
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./the_exe opts

using cmake for pascal source files

Is there a way to tell CMake to compile .pas source files with standard add_executable and target_link_libraries calls (like for c and c++ projects)?
Currently, we just list the files and use add_custom_command / add_custom_target and manually set the linker flags, but it would be nice to have something more integrated.
Source file: http://code.google.com/p/hedgewars/source/browse/hedgewars/CMakeLists.txt
According to the CMake docs for the enable_language() command and this question: What are the possible values for the LANGUAGE variable in CMAKE, it looks like the answer is no, there is currently no such way to build Pascal source code with the standard add_executable and target_link_libraries.
You can open up an issue ticket on Kitware's CMake GitLab repo requesting such functionality be added. If you do so, add a link to it here.