Gavin Wiggins

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CMake build

Written on December 13, 2022

Below is an example C++ project. The CMakeLists file contains instructions for building the project using the CMake command line tool.

MyProject
├── CMakeLists.txt
└── src
    ├── adder.cpp
    ├── adder.h
    └── main.cpp

Use the commands shown here to build the project with CMake. After building the project, the executable named AdderExample is available in the build directory.

# Configure the project and generate a native build system
# This creates a directory named `build`
$ cd MyProject
$ cmake -S . -B build

# Call the build system to compile/link the project
$ cmake --build build

# Run the executable
$ ./build/AdderExample

The structure of the project after running the build command is shown below.

MyProject
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── build
│   ├── AdderExample
│   ├── CMakeCache.txt
│   ├── CMakeFiles
│   ├── Makefile
│   └── cmake_install.cmake
└── src
    ├── adder.cpp
    ├── adder.h
    └── main.cpp

Remove the build directory to clear the project of built files and other output generated from CMake.

$ rm -rf build