CMake Toolchain file for Buildroot with external toolchain - cmake

I have generated a toolchain with buildroot using the make sdk command. This toolchain is able to relocate and I used it as external toolchain in buildroot. When using the internal toolchain, a file called output/host/share/buildroot/toolchainfile.cmake is used in my cmake project.
The idea behind generating an external toolchain is to not generate it all the time. All my configured target packages go inside the toolchain sysroot but when I make changes to the target package constellation, my cmake project will never notice due to the fact that the sysroot from the toolchain is used and not from the compiled buildroot sysroot.
Is there anyone facing the same problem?

I looked into the sysroot folder and it seems that buildroot copies the selected target packages into the that folder. So the toolchain is modified on every build unless you reinstall the external toolchain. So every change on the target package configuration will go into the toolchain and your project will see all updated packages.

Related

How to include a library using CMAKE in a cross-platform way

I am trying to use the assimp library in a cross platform C++ project. I include the repo as a git submodule, so, effectively, if someone downloads my project they will also download the ASSIMP project.
After I go through the assimp build / CMAKE instructions and (on Linux) type make install and from then on in my project I can use:
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} assimp)
However, there is no make install on Windows.
The only other way I have been able to include the library on Linux is to put (in my CmakeLists.txt file):
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/build/assimp/code/libassimp.so)
This is not cross platform as it hardcodes the name and location of the .so file which will not work on Windows.
How can I expose the library so that I can do something like target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} assimp) on all platforms?
My directory tree looks like:
- src
- include
- assimp
- bin
Where the assimp directory in the include directory is the git submodule
I think you're going about this the wrong way. You don't need to build assimp in a separate step from your project, and you don't need to make install to make it available.
There are a number of ways of handling third party dependencies in Cmake, since you've already chosen to submodule the assimp repository, we'll start there. Assuming assimp is located in the root of your repository in a directory called assimp/ this would be a barebones project including it:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
project(Project myassimpproj)
# include your directories
include_directories(
${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}
)
# set any variables you might need to set for your app and assimp
set(BUILD_ASSIMP_TOOLS ON)
set(ASSIMP_BUILD_STATIC_LIB ON)
# add assimp source dir as a subdirectory, effectively making
# assimp's CMakeLists.txt part of your build
add_subdirectory(/path/to/assimp ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/assimp)
add_executable(assimp_target main.cpp)
# be sure to link in assimp, use platform-agnostic syntax for the linker
target_link_libraries(assimp_target assimp)
There may be a better way of phrasing this using generator expressions syntax, but I haven't looked at assimp's CMakeLists.txt to know if it's supported (and this is a more generic way anyway.)
Not every project uses Cmake, so you may not be able to just add_subdirectory(). In those cases, you can effectively "fake" a user call to build them using their build commands on respective platforms. execute_process() runs a command at configure time add_custom_command() and add_custom_target() run commands at build time. You then create a fake target to make integration and cross your fingers they support Cmake someday.
You can also use the ExternalProject commands added to Cmake to create a custom target to drive download, update/patch, configure, build, install and test steps of an external project, but note that this solution and the next download the dependency rather than using the submodule'd source code.
Finally, I prefer to work with prebuilt dependencies, cuts down on build time, and they can be unit tested on their own outside of the project. Conan is an open source, decentralized and multi-platform package manager with very good support for C++ and almost transparent support for Cmake when used the right way. They have grown very stable in the last year. More information on how to use Conan with Cmake can be found here.

CMake find protobuf compiled from source

I am trying to build a project that depends on Google Protocol Buffers compiled from source. My project should be platform independent and also should support cross-compilation, which is the reason that i prefer to use a locally built protobuf. However I would prefer not to include the whole library as a subproject as it would take too much to build.
My simplified CMakeLists.txt is:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5)
project(sample-protobuf)
# find a boost install with the libraries filesystem and system
find_package(Protobuf REQUIRED)
set(SOURCES
main.cpp
)
add_executable(sample
${SOURCES}
)
target_link_libraries(sample
PRIVATE
protobuf::libprotobuf
)
I invoke CMake on Linux as:
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/built/protobuf/ ..
but it does not find the library and I get the following message:
Could not find a package configuration file provided by "Protobuf" with any
of the following names:
ProtobufConfig.cmake
protobuf-config.cmake
Add the installation prefix of "Protobuf" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
"Protobuf_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files. If
"Protobuf" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has
been installed.
On Windows this procedure works.
I built the library on Linux using the suggested approach, which is not with CMake but with autotools.
What should I do differently?
cd protobuf/cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake....
make...
sudo make install

Why won't find_library find libgmp

I'm trying to build a cmake project, and the repo I have been given has the lines
find_library(gmp gmp)
if(NOT gmp)
message(FATAL_ERROR "gmp not found")
endif()
which cause CMake configuration to fail.
I have been told this CMake works on Redhat Enterprise Linux 7.3.
I have also been told this repo should build in any Linux environment with the correct libraries installed, and an Ubuntu environment has been specifically referenced.
I am building in Debian 9.4.0, I have installed gmp, libgmp.so is located at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openssl-1.0.2/engines/libgmp.so
and I also have a libgmp.so.10 at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmp.so.10.
So, to recap, I have been handed a repo I have been told builds, but it does not build, it fails at this specific step, and I can't get google to give me any relevant results on how to fix the issue/what I am doing wrong.
libgmp is installed, but the development libraries are not.
Cmake find_libraries looks for the files required for software development, and while the libgmp package is installed, the libgmp-dev package is not.
Install libgmp-dev.
CMake doesn't search "so-version" files:
If find_library is called for "gmp" library name, CMake searches libgmp.so file, but not libgmp.so.10 one.
Normally, the library file without so-version is just a soft link to the newest so-version file. If your Linux distro doesn't create such link, you may create it manually:
ln -s libgmp.so libgmp.so.10
If you want CMake to find /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openssl-1.0.2/engines/libgmp.so file, which is not under directory normally searched by CMake, you need to hint CMake about it. E.g. with PATHS option:
find_library(gmp gmp PATHS "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openssl-1.0.2/engines")

CMake package configuration files for upstream projects using Qt5 problems

I am working on a larger C++ library that is using CMake and depends on Qt.
We moved from Qt4 to Qt5 and now I encounter a problem when using our lib
in an upstream project. As a minimal working example demonstrating the problem please have a look at this repo:
https://github.com/philthiel/cmake_qt5_upstream
It contains two separate CMake projects:
MyLIB: a tiny library that uses QString from Qt5::Core.
It generates and installs package configuration files
MyLIBConfig.cmake, MyLIBConfigVersion.cmake, and MyLIBTargets.cmake
in order to be searchable by CMake find_package()
MyAPP: a tiny executable depending on MyLIB
The project uses find_package(MyLIB) and creates an executable that uses MyLIB
The problem is that CMake gives me the following error message when configuring the MyAPP project:
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:11 (add_executable):
Target "MyAPP" links to target "Qt5::Core" but the target was not found.
Perhaps a find_package() call is missing for an IMPORTED target, or an
ALIAS target is missing?
The reason for this behaviour is that in the automatically generated MyLIBTargets.cmake file the INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES entry for Qt5 Core is the Qt5::Core symbol. Using Qt4, the absolute path to the Qt core lib was specified here.
Now, I simply can resolve this by using
find_package(Qt5Core 5.X REQUIRED)
in the MyAPP project.
However, I would like to know if this is the intended/generic way to go, i.e. requesting upstream projects of our lib to search for the required transitive Qt5 dependencies themselves, or if I probably misuse CMake here and need to change my configuration procedure?
The CMake docu on package file generation
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/manual/cmake-packages.7.html
mentions that macros can be provided by the package configuration files to upstream. Maybe this would be the correct place to search for imported targets like Qt5 and break upstream configuration runs when these dependencies are not found?
Best,
Philipp
[edit of the edit] Full Source Example
You need to deliver a CMake config file for your project, and probably the ConfigFile should be generated via CMake itself (because you cannot know for shure where the user will install your software).
Tip, use the ECM cmake modules to ease the creation of that:
find_package(ECM REQUIRED NO_MODULE)
include(CMakePackageConfigHelpers)
ecm_setup_version(${PROJECT_VERSION}
VARIABLE_PREFIX ATCORE
VERSION_HEADER "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/atcore_version.h"
PACKAGE_VERSION_FILE "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/KF5AtCoreConfigVersion.cmake"
SOVERSION 1
)
configure_package_config_file("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/KF5AtCoreConfig.cmake.in"
"${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/KF5AtCoreConfig.cmake"
INSTALL_DESTINATION ${CMAKECONFIG_INSTALL_DIR}
)
and the KF5AtCoreConfig.cmake.in:
#PACKAGE_INIT#
find_dependency(Qt5Widgets "#REQUIRED_QT_VERSION#")
find_dependency(Qt5SerialPort "#REQUIRED_QT_VERSION#")
find_dependency(KF5Solid "#KF5_DEP_VERSION#")
include("${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/KF5AtCoreTargets.cmake")
This will generate the correct FindYourSortware.cmake with all your dependencies.
[edit] Better explanation on what's going on.
If you are providing a library that will use Qt, and that would also need to find the Qt5 library before compilling the user's source, you need to provide yourself a FindYourLibrary.cmake code, that would call
find_package(Qt5 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core Gui Widgets Whatever)
Now, if it's your executable that needs to be linked, use the Components instead of the way you are doing it now.
find_package(Qt5 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core)
then you link your library with
target_link_libraries(YourTarget Qt5::Core)

CMake does not compĂ­le Qt5 generate from buildroot

I generate a tarball with Qt5 using Buildroot 2014.05.
When I uncompressed this files to compile my project using CMake I receive the following error message:
CMake Error at <project> /sysroot/usr/lib/cmake/Qt5Core/Qt5CoreConfig.cmake:27 (message):
The imported target "Qt5::Core" references the file
"<project>/host/usr/bin/qmake"
but this file does not exist. Possible reasons include:
* The file was deleted, renamed, or moved to another location.
* An install or uninstall procedure did not complete successfully.
* The installation package was faulty and contained
"/<project>/sysroot/usr/lib/cmake/Qt5Core/Qt5CoreConfigExtras.cmake"
but not all the files it references.
I'm using the cmake configs under
<project>/sysroot/usr/lib/cmake/
and my CMakeLists.txt
set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH <project>/sysroot/usr/lib/cmake/QtWidgets/ )
find_package(Qt5Widgets REQUIRED)
Any suggestion?
Buildroot 2014.05 does not have qmake to install
This part: I generate a tarball with Qt5 using Buildroot does make much sense. What do you mean exactly by this ?
If by this you mean that you tarball'ed the contents of output/host/ (which is the toolchain and all the libraries that you need to build applications for your target), then beware that it is not relocatable. So it has to be installed in the same location as the one it was generated in. So for now, if you want to do this, you should set the BR2_HOST_DIR configuration option to something like /opt/<something>/, and then tarball that up and uncompress it on the other machines where you want to use the toolchain.
It's in our TODO-list to make this relocatable.