memory checkpoints

7 generic steps to build any cmakeable C/C++ project

2015-12-22T00:29:00.002+03:00

“If you build it, CR will come…”

from Motorolans folklore

Sometimes digging through SO, I’ve often saw common questions - “How to build < whatever project > using Visual Studio/MinGW/etc... ???”.

It almost always relates to Windows, because a lot of good software naturally born and developed on Linux/Unix platform, where make utility still the primary tool for managing builds. (... and yes, I know about mingw-make... )

But to my personal opinion, all great software should be cross-platform if possible. And here is CMake comes into the scene.

CMake gains more and more attention and popularity, so major great OSS projects (and commercial) adopting it in their build process. In most cases, but not all, those projects can be built on any platform, where CMake can be run. If it’s not true, you’ve always can submit ticket or patch against any build issues.

So here is common steps for building any project which has CMake support.

Of course I assume that you’re familiar with:

Command line/shell usage on your platform
VCS tools, like git, svn, hg or even old cvs

so below steps should not be surprise to you.

Clone/checkout/un-pack project to your local storage.
Ensure that project is support cmake build generation.

This can be done by searching for CMakeLists.txt file in project sources without cloning (use SCM WebUI). Almost always it can be found in project root folder. If above file is not found - you out of luck, sorry. This post will not help you. But as I’ve already said - you always can submit pull request with basic CMake support. It is really not that hard.

Create build folder inside project root location. For example build and enter it.
Generate build files for project using command

cmake < path to CMakeLists.txt >
in our example it just cmake ..

Build project with command

cmake --build .

Run tests for project

ctest -VV

Install artifacts on your platform

cmake --build . --target install

Is it simple, huh?

Steps 6 and 7 can be optional. Sometimes it just not implemented in project (cmake install and test are should be explicitly declared in CMakeLists.txt)

Have a nice day and happy building!

-- SN

September, 1

2009-09-01T16:37:00.001+04:00

There is important day here in Russia (and I suspect for all other countries).

This day, all children who became 7 or 6 years old goes to school to their first class.

Also it is first day of Autumn, which means that Summer is over :-).

I’m alive but quite busy…

2009-09-01T16:28:00.001+04:00

Well, it not good enough not to updating own blog periodically. Will start it shortly. Sorry for delay.

boost 1.39.0 is out...

2009-05-03T14:57:00.002+04:00

Actually, not big news, since it was planned as per schedule :-)
--
SN

The Safe C Library

2009-02-22T23:50:00.002+03:00

DDJ announced safe C library (as per TR 24731) implementation availability on SourceForge.

--
SN

mike tyson's fights on espn classic channel

2009-02-16T10:42:00.002+03:00

Well it is a pleasure to see Mike's best fights on TV.

Honestly, I wasn't see them all when I was younger.
From the beginning to the knockout.

Thanks to ESPN for that retrospective.

--
SN

weekend and rain

2009-02-16T10:34:00.002+03:00

There are raining here in California...

Bad time for trips and good time for books and coding.

--
SN

Business trip to California

2009-01-31T14:06:00.002+03:00

Well, I now in San Jose, California, USA for couple of month.

Trying to figure out how we could improve software product for our new customer.

I wish to note that it is my first visit to legendary Silicon Vally.

- SN

STLSoft // some thoughts regarding performance_counter

2008-05-29T08:58:00.004+04:00

Well, I'm started to look at some useful functionality in STLSoft.

I'm not saying that I'm unhappy with the Boost C++ library, but since STLSoft pass to me with Pantheios (Boost still not having logging library) I'd give it a chance :-). You're know - options are good.

First, I come to platformstl.
There were something that I'm interested, particularly performance_counter and I'm was a little frustrated...

I've not found the options to get floating point interval representation/conversion.
Yeah, I know, I know... I can write it by myself by converting each time by multiply ms (.get_microseconds()) representation to 1E-6 for example. But I think this option should be embedded in STLSoft natively to make it usable.

A good example of performance counter present in Intel TBB.

How they differs?

Well create an example how to check performance with both libs...

--- code example --------

-------------------------

--- output -------------
0.000303 seconds our logger
0.000220881 seconds our logger
-------------------------------
First was STLSoft performance_counter.
Second was Intel TBB tick_count.

Intel TBB more accurate.

I think something similar should be added to STLSoft (or already added?)

Waiting for comments from Matt :-)
--
SN

English part of my thoughts will be here...

2008-05-13T19:22:00.000+04:00

Just to be sure if I'm on right track with my English practice :-)
Don't be afraid to blame me for mistakes in comments - I'll be very thankful