How do you add Boost libraries in CMakeLists.txt?

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I need to add Boost libraries into my CMakeLists.txt. How do you do it or how do you add it?

8 Answers

May this could helpful for some people. I had a naughty error: undefined reference to symbol '_ZN5boost6system15system_categoryEv' //usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0: error adding symbols: DSO missing from command line There were some issue of cmakeList.txt and somehow I was missing to explicitly include the "system" and "filesystem" libraries. So, I wrote these lines in CMakeLists.txt

These lines are written at the beginning before creating the executable of the project, as at this stage we don't need to link boost library to our project executable.

set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS OFF) 
set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREADED ON)  
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME OFF) 
set(Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS TRUE) 

if (Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS)
  set(BOOST_ROOT "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../../3p/boost")
  set(BOOST_INCLUDE_DIRS "${BOOST_ROOT}/include")
  set(BOOST_LIBRARY_DIRS "${BOOST_ROOT}/lib")
endif (Boost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS)


find_package(Boost COMPONENTS regex date_time system filesystem thread graph program_options) 

find_package(Boost REQUIRED regex date_time system filesystem thread graph program_options)
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS program_options REQUIRED)

Now at the end of the file, I wrote these lines by considering "KeyPointEvaluation" as my project executable.

if(Boost_FOUND)
    include_directories(${BOOST_INCLUDE_DIRS})
    link_directories(${Boost_LIBRARY_DIRS})
    add_definitions(${Boost_DEFINITIONS})

    include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})  
    target_link_libraries(KeyPointEvaluation ${Boost_LIBRARIES})
    target_link_libraries( KeyPointEvaluation ${Boost_PROGRAM_OPTIONS_LIBRARY} ${Boost_FILESYSTEM_LIBRARY} ${Boost_REGEX_LIBRARY} ${Boost_SYSTEM_LIBRARY})
endif()

Try as saying Boost documentation:

set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS        ON)  # only find static libs
set(Boost_USE_DEBUG_LIBS         OFF) # ignore debug libs and 
set(Boost_USE_RELEASE_LIBS       ON)  # only find release libs 
set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREADED      ON)
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME    OFF) 
find_package(Boost 1.66.0 COMPONENTS date_time filesystem system ...)
if(Boost_FOUND)   
    include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})
    add_executable(foo foo.cc)   
    target_link_libraries(foo ${Boost_LIBRARIES})
endif()

Don't forget to replace foo to your project name and components to yours!

Additional information to answers above for those still having problems.

  1. Last version of Cmake's FindBoost.cmake may not content last version fo Boost. Add it if needed.
  2. Use -DBoost_DEBUG=0 configuration flag to see info on problems.
  3. See for library naming format. Use Boost_COMPILER and Boost_ARCHITECTURE suffix vars if needed.

If you are using custome boost path, set CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH firstly. So, cmake can find your custome boost.

list(FIND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH ${CUSTOME_BOOST_DEP_PREFIX} _INDEX)
if (_INDEX EQUAL -1)
    list(APPEND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH ${CUSTOME_BOOST_DEP_PREFIX})
    # set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH ${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH} PARENT_SCOPE)
endif ()

By the way, if you run above code in sub cmake file, should set CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH back to parent scope.

set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH ${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH} PARENT_SCOPE)

If you want find all components of boost, using below code.

find_package(Boost 1.76 COMPONENTS ALL)
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