Linking Shared library (which has dependency on other shared library) in CMake - cmake

I am trying to build an executable which links to a shared library (named 'caffe'). The shared library is dependent on another shared library (named 'cblas'). When I try to link to caffe in my CMake file it shows the following error:
libcblas.so.3, needed by libcaffe.so, not found (try using -rpath or
-rpath-link)
I am using the following statements in my CMakeLists.txt:
link_directories(${BINARIES}/lib)
add_library(CAFFE_LIBRARY SHARED IMPORTED)
set_target_properties(CAFFE_LIBRARY PROPERTIES IMPORTED_LOCATION ${BINARIES}/lib/libcaffe.so)
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} CAFFE_LIBRARY)
Both 'cblas' and 'caffe' libraries are present in ${BINARIES}/lib folder.
Do I need to add cblas.so to target_link_libraries also? Also, i am not building caffe.so so building it via CMake and keeping it as a dependency is not an option
Is there any other feasible solution for the same problem where dependency tree of shared library needs to be resolved while linking?

Browsing through the library's GitHub tree, it seems to me that it provides a package config file. Therefore, if you have installed it in the normal way, you should be able to find it as a package, instead of defining the imported target yourself:
find_package(Caffe)
include_directories(${Caffe_INCLUDE_DIRS})
add_definitions(${Caffe_DEFINITIONS}) # ex. -DCPU_ONLY
add_executable(caffeinated_application main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(caffeinated_application ${Caffe_LIBRARIES})
The example above comes from the Caffe documentation on the topic.

Related

How to rewrite a find_package based library into one which can be embedded into the parent project directly?

The library libwebrtc from https://github.com/cloudwebrtc/libwebrtc-build/blob/dev/CMakeLists.txt was built to be used with make; make install and the project which wants to use the library must later use the find_package from CMake.
I, however, want to change libwebrtc so it can be added as a git submodule into my current project as a custom library, as, for instance, https://github.com/itay-grudev/SingleApplication which is compiled when I type: cmake ..; make into a static/dynamic library and then linked in my main application. (The Qt library example I references earlier was confusing since this is build outside of my main project and only linked to afterwards - which is not what I want). Sorry for that confusion.
To be able to do that, I think that the ExternalProject_Add at https://github.com/cloudwebrtc/libwebrtc-build/blob/a24a5e5947658d43339d4bfd85d3f4c52fc71057/CMakeLists.txt#L100 must be changed into a add_library call.
The problem here is that the include_directories is used by the main project before the library has been completely built.
Question
How to rewrite libwebrtc to be used as a simple static library with proper build dependencies so that my main project is only compiled/linked after the libwebrtc build was finished and custom header files were generated in the CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR of libwebrtc.
Or in other words, how to rewrite libwebrtc to be used without having to call make install for the library and then use find_package to use that library.
The hack (which is working already)
With this hack I am already able to:
Build the library from my parent project
Depend on the generated header files which exist only after the libwebrtc has been built completely (thus, delay main project building until dependencies are meet)
Depend on the generated webrtc.a static library for the linker step
I imaging that make install will work since libwebrtc is statically linked.
add_dependencies(${PROJECT_NAME} libwebrtcx)
add_subdirectory(third-party/libwebrtcx)
include_directories(
${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/sources/third-party/libwebrtcx/include/webrtc
${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/sources/third-party/libwebrtcx/include/webrtc/third_party/libyuv/include/
${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/sources/third-party/libwebrtcx/webrtc/src/third_party/abseil-cpp
)
add_library(libwebrtc STATIC IMPORTED)
set_property(TARGET libwebrtc PROPERTY IMPORTED_LOCATION "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/sources/third-party/libwebrtcx/webrtc/src/out/Release/obj/libwebrtc.a")
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} libwebrtc)
Note: It requires to rename the libwebrtc project to libwebrtcx and also the ExternalProject_Add at https://github.com/cloudwebrtc/libwebrtc-build/blob/a24a5e5947658d43339d4bfd85d3f4c52fc71057/CMakeLists.txt#L100 must be renamed to libwebrtcx.
Note: It also requires to rename all CMAKE_BINARY_DIR into CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR and CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR to CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR. Details can be found here: CMake: Using add_subproject with a library using Include ends up in wrong relative path

How to setup a Find*.cmake for find_package in Module mode?

I have an external dependency (headers and shared libraries as well as version.txt file in a known install location) for my project. This dependency has no built-in support for CMake find_package(). After reading the find_package() docs and this SO answer, my understanding is that I should use module mode for find_package(). In the Find*.cmake cmake directory, my guess is that it should:
Setup and verify paths to the header and shared libraries
Read in the version file
Define a project using the version file text
Add an interface library target (${PROJECT_NAME})
Add an alias to the interface library using a namespace (${MY_NAMESPACE})
Add a library target for each shared library path
Set the imported path property for each shared library
Link the shared libraries to the interface library target
Link the include directory to the interface library target
export(TARGETS ${PROJECT_NAME} NAMESPACE ${MY_NAMESPACE}::)
export(PACKAGE ${PROJECT_NAME})
Profit?
Am I doing this right and/or taking the right approach?

Add only headers of an imported module to a library in CMake

In CMake there are imported modules that are used to simply add external modules to local targets. For example if we want to use boost::filesystem library in our project we could have a CMakeLists.txt like this:
project(foo CXX)
find_packge(Boost REQUIRED COMPONENTS filesystem)
add_executable(foo main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(foo Boost::filesystem)
With above configuration CMake will add proper compiler options and include directories among required libraries to building process of the foo.
Now we have to build a library instead of an executable and we don't want to link boost::filesystem libraries to our library. We want only compiler options and include directories to be added to our target. Could we use imported modules concepts here? I mean that if we could use Boost::filesystem syntax for adding those options to our target?
project(foo CXX)
find_packge(Boost REQUIRED COMPONENTS filesystem)
add_library(foo STATIC foo.cpp)
# what should be wrote here to only add headers and configs to foo not the libs?
Turning my comments into an answer
add_library(STATIC) won't link the target_link_libraries() dependencies into itself.
In short, if two static libraries would include e.g. Boost::filesystem and then you link both of those libraries into an executable (where the external symbols get actually resolved) you would get duplicate symbol errors.
So CMake by default, does not add linker options like --whole-archive for gcc or LinkLibraryDependencies for VC.
target_link_libraries(foo Boost::filesystem) should work, it just describes the dependency resolved later when building a executable or shared library.
References
ld linker question: the --whole-archive option
CMake issue #9732: Cmake does not disable Link Libray Dependencies in the project settings

Why use add_library({tgt} IMPORTED) versus target_link_libraries( -l {.so | .a})?

What is the purpose of using the statement:
add_library(<tgt> [SHARED|STATIC] IMPORTED)
From what I have found even if you create an imported library target above you still would need to specify the specific location of the actual .so or .a. This would take at least 3 cmake commands to link to an executable and the compiler still would not automatically search through the common include directories on your OS.
Example:
cmake code to link IMPORTED lib
From the CMake documentation I understand there are really 3 ways to link a library that is not built as a target in a subproject of your overall application/library.
CMake target_link_libraries() documentation
Using a CMake package for one of the shipped package scripts.
Using a linker flag:
target_link_libraries(<tgt> [SHARED|STATIC|...] -lncursesw)
Or using the IMPORTED library method (showcased in code at top).
A major difference when using the second method is that it only takes a single line of code and will search through all of your compiler's predefined include directories on you OS. Could anyone help me understand why the add_library() method is used?
Additional Realated SO Posts:
Include directories for IMPORTED libs
CMake imported library behavior
You should use add_library(<tgt> [SHARED|STATIC] IMPORTED) whenever you need to set properties such as dependencies, compile definitions, compile flags etc for <tgt>, and/or by extension, any targets that are linking against <tgt>.
Let's say you have two static libraries; libfoobar.a and libraboof.a, where libfoobar.a requires libraboof.a. Let's also say that these libraries contain some features that are enabled by -DSOME_FEATURE.
add_library(raboof STATIC IMPORTED)
set_target_properties(raboof PROPERTIES
IMPORTED_LOCATION <path-to-libraboof.a>
INTERFACE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "SOME_FEATURE"
)
add_library(foobar STATIC IMPORTED)
set_target_properties(foobar PROPERTIES
IMPORTED_LOCATION <path-to-libfoobar.a>
INTERFACE_LINK_LIBRARIES raboof
)
So when you link against libfoobar.a:
add_executable(my_app main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_app foobar)
CMake will make sure to link all dependencies in the correct order and will in this case also append -DSOME_FEATURE to the compile flags when you build my_app. Note that since we added libraboof.a as a dependency to libfoobar.a, -DSOME_FEATURE is added to any target that link against libfoobar.a through the transitive property.
If you don't use add_library(<tgt> <SHARED|STATIC> IMPORTED) in a scenario like this, you would have to manage any dependencies and required build options yourself for each target, which is quite error-prone.
This method is also often used in Config-modules for multi-component libraries to manage dependencies between the components.

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)