I want to compile the same .cpp source file into two different target executables and I am using cmake. One will have some instrumentation code and the other won't. That way I can compare the overhead of instrumentation.
I have the instrumentation code separated with #ifdefs so I want to define a value using the -D flag. I see that is possible with
add_definitions(-DINSTRUMENT)
But it looks like this then applies to all the executables created in that directory. I'm wondering if there is a good way to set the definition only for a specific executable target.
You can set the COMPILE_DEFINITIONS property of one of the targets to have target-specific definitions:
set_target_properties (instrumented_target PROPERTIES COMPILE_DEFINITIONS "INSTRUMENT")
Update:
Starting from CMake 2.8.11 you can also use target_compile_definitions for the same purpose.
Related
Is there a way in CMake to find a binary target complete name (mybin.exe) by inspecting target properties? Like
get_target_property(EXENAME targetname OUTPUT_NAME) (or RUNTIME_OUTPUT_NAME)
Or I have to use a custom command like in How to get library full-native name on cmake?
With get_target_property seems I'm only able to get the "logical" target name out of it (mybin), with no other information. Am I missing something?
Thank you
There's a reason this is not possible without generator expressions: There are multi configuration generators such as the Visual Studio generators that create a build system for multiple build configurations (Release, Debug, ...) in a single CMake configuration run (cmake -S ... -B ...). It's even the default to create binaries in a directory with a name matching the configuration built.
Depending on what you want to do with the information, there are some alternatives:
You may be able to use generator expressions, e.g. if you need the information as part of add_custom_command, add_custom_target, add_test or similar. Several target properties also allow for use of generator expressions.
You may be able to establish the desired directory structure during an install step, see the install() command.
You may be able to get the build system to generate the files in a specific location e.g. by setting the CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY variable in the toplevel CMakeLists.txt. Note that this will still result in configuration dependent subdirectories being created for multi configuration generators, unless the variable value contains a generator expression. (You could, simply be adding $<0:>, but this could easily result in binaries of different configurations overwriting one another.)
If you cannot specify this in the toplevel CMakeLists.txt, via command line or cmake presets, you could still use a path relative to CMAKE_BINARY_DIR; this should make the binaries easy to locate.
In the end that is a matter of doing:
add_custom_command(TARGET ${your_target}
POST_BUILD
WORKING_DIRECTORY ${your_dir}
COMMAND echo "$<TARGET_FILE:${your_target}>" > "exename.txt"
DEPENDS ${your_target} ${another_target}
VERBATIM
)
so that exename.txt contains the full path to the executable target
Didn't find a way to do st like:
set(EXENAME "$<TARGET_FILE:${your_target}>")
anyway...
My project consists of multiple targets. I want to specify compile options for all of them with
command "target_compile_options"
I get a list of targets using macros from CMake - remove a compile flag for a single translation unit:
macro(apply_global_cxx_flags_to_all_targets)
separate_arguments(_global_cxx_flags_list UNIX_COMMAND ${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS})
get_property(_targets DIRECTORY PROPERTY BUILDSYSTEM_TARGETS)
foreach(_target ${_targets})
target_compile_options(${_target} PUBLIC ${_global_cxx_flags_list})
endforeach()
unset(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS)
set(_flag_sync_required TRUE)
endmacro()
But I receive errors:
target_compile_options called with non-compilable target type
as some of targets doesn't require compiling. Is there a way to check if project is compilable? I want to use "target_compile_options as I need to remove some options for one subproject (as in mentioned thread)
Is there a way to check if project is compilable?
Yes, get the type of the target and check if it's an executable or a library and if it's not an INTERFACE library.
I want to specify compile options for all of them
Consider using add_compile_options at root folder instead.
I am trying to work on a project for a class and I want to use CMake to build the project. My current project looks like
|-bin
|-CMakeLists.txt
|-include
|-asio-1.12.2
|-chat_message.hpp
|-chat_message.cpp
|-CMakeLists.txt
|-src
|-Server.cpp
although my Server.cpp needs asio.hpp that is in /include/asio-1.12.2/include.
The professor has a makefile that compiles it with the flags
-DASIO_STANDALONE -Wall -O0 -g -std=c++11 -I./include -I./include/asio-1.12.2/include. My CMakeLists files look like this:
./CMakeLists.txt
CMAKE_MINIMUM_REQUIRED(VERSION 3.12)
PROJECT(Server VERSION 0.0.1)
SET(CPP_STANDARD 11)
SET(CPP_STANDARD_REQUIRED True)
ADD_SUBDIRECTORY(include)
ADD_EXECUTABLE(Server src/Server.cpp)
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(
Server PRIVATE
chat_message
asio
)
./include/CMakeLists.txt
ADD_LIBRARY(
chat_message
chat_message.cpp
chat_message.hpp
)
ADD_LIBRARY(
asio
asio-1.12.2/include/asio.cpp
asio-1.12.2/include/asio.hpp
)
TARGET_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(
chat_message PUBLIC "${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 am using CMake to cross compile a C project for an embedded (heterogeneous) multi-core system. The compiler takes an mandatory argument (-t<type>, the target type). This flag has to be set to pass CMake's compiler test. I am adding this flag in a toolchain file as follows:
add_compile_options(-tMYPLATFORMTYPE)
The problem with this approach is, all project files will be compiled with this flag. Is there a way to configure compile flags for the test compilation only, without affecting the main project configuration? (Note: Within the project different files shall have different values for this flag.)
What I am looking for is something like:
set(CMAKE_TRY_COMPILE_COMPILE_OPTIONS "-tMYPLATFORMTYPE")
I could disabled the compile test, but I would prefer to keep it.
You can check the IN_TRY_COMPILE property and set the flag for try-compile configurations only:
get_property(IS_IN_TRY_COMPILE GLOBAL PROPERTY IN_TRY_COMPILE)
if(IS_IN_TRY_COMPILE)
add_compile_options(-tMYPLATFORMTYPE)
endif()
I have the following directory layout:
main_folder
+ static_lib1
+ executable
Both 'static_lib1' and 'executable' have a full CMakeLists so that they can be
built independently.
The 'executable' depends on 'static_lib1'. It uses find_package() to locate 'static_lib1'.
The main_folder contains a CMakeLists that includes both 'static_lib1' and 'executable' via add_subdirectory for conveniently building the whole project in one go.
Everything works fine if I manually build 'static_lib1' and then 'executable'. But when running the CMakeLists from the main folder, I get an error because find_package is unable to find the library files from 'static_lib1' which have not yet been built.
How can I resolve this while keeping the CMakeLists files separate (i.e. without including the static_lib's CMakeLists from the executable's CMakeLists)?
In executable's CMakeLists.txt you can check if you are building stand-alone or as part of project:
if( CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR STREQUAL CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR )
# stand-alone build
find_package(static_lib1)
else()
include_directories(../static_lib1)
link_directories(../static_lib1)
...
target_link_libraries(executable static_lib1)
endif()
Switch from a file-based approach to a target-based approach for handling the dependency from executable to static_lib1.
The original problem occurred because executable called find_package for locating static_lib1, which then attempted to fill a variable like STATIC_LIB1_LIBRARY with the paths to the library files by calling find_library. executable then consumes the content of that variable in a target_link_libraries(executable ${STATIC_LIB1_LIBRARY}) call. The problem here is, since those library files only get generated as part of the build, that call to find_library will not be able to find anything.
Building executable needs to support two scenarios here:
Building standalone, where a pre-compiled version of static_lib1 is located somewhere on the disc.
Building from main_folder, where both executable and static_lib1 are part of the same build.
The approach from the question supports scenario 1, but not scenario 2.
Instead of using using a variable to communicate a dependency between the two builds, use a target. The CMakeLists.txt for static_lib1 likely creates a library target like add_library(static_lib1 [...]). In executable we now simply do target_link_libraries(executable PUBLIC static_lib1). This is sufficient to support scenario 2.
To also allow for scenario 1 at the same time, we look at the call to find_package(static_lib1) in the CMakeLists.txt for executable. Instead of providing a variable like before, this call now needs to provide a target static_lib1 for consumption.
So we adapt the find script for static_lib1 to the following behavior:
If a target static_lib1 already exists, there's nothing to be done and the find script can just return (this is scenario 2).
Otherwise, we call find_library to locate the library file on disc (as before in the original approach) and then create a new imported target: add_library(static_lib1 STATIC IMPORTED). We then configure all relevant properties of the static library to that target. For instance, to add the location of the library file, we could do
set_target_properties(static_lib1 PROPERTIES
IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LANGUAGES "CXX"
IMPORTED_LOCATION ${STATIC_LIB1_LIBRARY}
)
To support multi-config generators like MSVC, instead of setting IMPORTED_LOCATION and IMPORTED_LINK_INTERFACE_LANGUAGES, you will want to set the configuration specific properties like IMPORTED_LOCATION_DEBUG and IMPORTED_LOCATION_RELEASE instead. Since this can get quite tedious to do manually, you can have CMake generate this information (and a bunch of other convenient stuff) for you in a package script. The find mechanism for package scripts works slightly different under the hood, but the code in the CMakeLists.txt for executable will look just the same, a simple call to find_package(static_lib1). The main difference is that this call will then not dispatch to a hand-written find script, but to a package script that was automatically generated by CMake as part of the build process of static_lib1.
I guess I will leave this answer for posterity since only recently I have searched for a solution to this problem and found out that...
Since CMake 3.24 it is possible!
It is possible to override subsequent calls to find_package() with FetchContent_Declare() flag OVERRIDE_FIND_PACKAGE.
Your
add_subdirectory("path/to/static_lib1")
call has to be replaced in main_folder/CMakeLists.txt with:
include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
static_lib1
SOURCE_DIR "path/to/static_lib1"
OVERRIDE_FIND_PACKAGE
)
Any calls to find_package(static_lib1) will call FetchContent_MakeAvailable() for you, virtually making it identical to add_subdirectory() call.
You can read more about OVERRIDE_FIND_PACKAGE in CMake documentation.