C++/C Importing Third Party Library to CMake

Question

Hi I was wondering if anyone here could help me identify what I'm doing wrong while trying to add a library to my CMake project: So originally I built the library https://github.com/recp/cglm in the command line with cmake.Heres what I did

I created a build folder in the desktop(mkdir build)

I changed directory to it (cd build)

And then I created the sln with cmake(cmake /path-to/cglm)

After that I opened Visual Studio 2019 and saw 5 projects: ALL_BUILD, cglm, INSTALL, PACKAGE, ZERO_CHECK

I built the cglm project and recieved this in the Build Folder

Then inside the debug folder of the build folder I saw 4 files: cglm.exp , cglm.lib , cgl-0.dll and cglm-0.pdb

Then I went to another project to add the library and created the following CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 3.8)

project ("MathPlease")

add_executable(MathPlease "MathPlease.cpp" "MathPlease.h")

link_directories("path-to/desktop/dev/cglm/build

find_package("cglm")

When I try to save that I receive the following error

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Warning     CMake Warning at C:\Users\asupr\source\repos\MathPlease\CMakeLists.txt:14 (find_package):
  By not providing "Findcglm.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has
  asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "cglm", but
  CMake did not find one.

  Could not find a package configuration file provided by "cglm" with any of
  the following names:

    cglmConfig.cmake
    cglm-config.cmake

  Add the installation prefix of "cglm" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
  "cglm_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files.  If "cglm"
  provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has been
  installed.    MathPlease  C:\Users\asupr\source\repos\MathPlease\CMakeLists.txt   14

If anyone needs the cmakeoutput.log I can paste it here as well any help would be greatly appreciated!

user_510423 · Answer

In general you have two approaches -

Install cglm library & then make use of it in your project
Build cglm as part of your project

I have used both approaches & found the latter to be far better. Especially for smaller projects for these reasons -

Better intellisense, you can jump to 3rd party code and even edit
Easy to package and ship the project artifacts
Easy to manage in CI, version upgrades fo 3rd party projects

I use FectchContent CMake api to achieve this. (Alternatively same can be achieved by adding third party source-code to your project manually too)

Now I have not worked on cglm personally, but still a sample build file

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)

project("MathPlease")

set(CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib)
set(CMAKE_LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/lib)
set(CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin)

set(CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS ON)

include(FetchContent)
set(FETCHCONTENT_QUIET FALSE)

fetchcontent_declare(
  cglm
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/recp/cglm.git
  GIT_TAG v0.8.5
  GIT_PROGRESS TRUE
)

if(NOT cglm_POPULATED)
  message("populating cglm")
  fetchcontent_populate(cglm)
  add_subdirectory(${cglm_SOURCE_DIR} ${cglm_BUILD_DIR})
endif()

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} MathPlease.cpp)

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} cglm)

P.S. FetchContent is a fairly recent CMake feature. You will need CMake > 3.11

C++/C Importing Third Party Library to CMake

1 Answers