Cmake template (2.0)

A rewrite of this CMake template, trimming away some "bloat"

What's this

• A somewhat minimalist CMake project configuration.

What's included

• Integration with multiple tools:
  • Formatters & linters:
    • clang-format
    • clang-tidy
    • cmake-format
  • Unit test (GTest), fuzz test (libFuzzer), benchmark (Google benchmark)
  • Sanitizers (ASan, UBSan, MSan, TSan)
  • Download dependencies with conan
  • ccache
  • lld
• Choice to use either C++20 modules or traditional #includes.
• Some convenient commands in the Makefile.
• Basic installation and CPack configuration.

How to use

• If you want to use conan, first, set up conan by Reading The Friendly Manual:
• Then install packages,

# build type: either Debug, Release, MinSizeRel or RelWithDebInfo. Case-sensitive.
# default to Debug.
conan install <project source dir> --build=missing -s build_type=<your build type>
# or, you can use the convenient Makefile
# say, I also want to install CMake and Ninja
make conan-install \
    CONAN_OPTIONS="install_cmake=True install_ninja=True" \
    BUILD_TYPE="<your build type>"

• Build dir after this step is <project root>/<your build type>.
• Then generate the CMake

# --preset conan-release if building release
# if you want to use the default compiler, remove the
# -DCMAKE_C(XX)_COMPILER and -G option.
# maybe -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS also, if you don't need it.
cmake -B <your build dir> --preset conan-debug \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=<the compiler> \
    -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=<the compiler> \
    -G <generator> \
    -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON

• Further configure with ccmake:

ccmake -B <your build dir>

• Lastly, create a symlink if you do need the compile_commands.json:

# assuming you're at the project root
ln -s <your build dir>/compile_commands.json compile_commands.json

What to change

• At the very least, the project name, and the export macro.

  • A shell script is provided for this task.

  # assuming you're at the project root
  sh ./sed-all.sh

• If this is a top-level project, and you want these features:

  • The install configuration
  • The packing configuration

• If you use other dependencies:

  • The conanfile.
  • Search for the package you want on ConanCenter.
  • Also, don't forget to read the friendly manual of the package you're consuming.
  • Find package before you use:

  # eg, using raylib
  find_package(raylib REQUIRED)
  # using the stuff
  add_library(my_game)
  target_sources(my_game PRIVATE my_game_source.cxx)
  target_link_libraries(my_game PRIVATE raylib)

Note

• Limited testing was done for MSVC (Visual Studio). While it is expected that this works out of the box for Visual Studio, in reality, it may not be so simple.

• Option between C++20 modules and traditional headers uses some dirty tricks:

  • Make sure to use either Ninja or Visual Studio as your generator.
  • First, when module is enabled, ENABLE_MODULE is defined.
  • Then, there's a header named "module_cfg.h" in the source directory root.
    • The essentials of this header is the macro <PROJECT_NAME>_EXPORT. This macro is redefined as export when module is enabled, and nothing otherwise.
  • Since preprocessor macro cannot contain other preprocessor macros, one has to manually #ifdef ENABLE_MODULE. Something like,

  #ifdef ENABLE_MODULE
  module;
  #else
  #include "lib.hxx"
  #endif
  
  #include <print>
  
  #ifdef ENABLE_MODULE
  export module lib;
  #endif

  • And in the file that imports the module:

  #ifdef ENABLE_MODULE
  import lib;
  #else
  #include "lib.hxx"
  #endif

  • For most compilers, standard library header is still experimental, and hence not configured with this CMake template.

Future plans

• Support for ast_grep
  • Such a cool tool. But have to learn about it first.