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2020

  • in Tools
  • 10 min read

Problems with external dependencies in C++

Dependencies are usually the most problematic part of the build system (next to the toolchain setup) in programming projects. In C++ this is especially hard because there is no one standard build system. Many more problems arise if we target an embedded system. Other programming languages resolve this issue by having one built-in package manager (usually accompanied by an integrated build system). In C++ we lack both of them, so our lives are much harder. Fortunately, there are a few third-party package managers which get more and more popular. In this series of posts, I will try to convince you to start using one of them – Conan.

  • in Tools
  • 7 min read

How to cross-compile for embedded with CMake like a champ

The power of CMake lies in the fact, that it is both cross-platform in terms of build host and allows cross-compilation for different targets at the same time. In other words, we can build projects from any platform to any platform as long as we have proper tools (usually called toolchains). However many people don’t know about this and try to come up with a sophisticated handmade solution or put complex logic into CMakeLists.txt files in order to setup the environment. Today I’m going to show you how to enable cross-compilation for your project with CMake, basing on the embedded platform case.

  • in Tools
  • 8 min read

How to join repositories in CMake

Sometimes there is a need in a project to use directly some other repository (local or external). This means, that we want to be able to incorporate parts (or all) of sources of the imported repository into our build system. Usually, in such a case we would also like to track which version is used at a given time.

We can solve this problem in a few ways, e.g. by using:

  • git submodules,
  • git subtree,
  • CMake FetchContent,
  • CMake ExternalProject.

First two are handled by the version control system and the last two are handled by the build system. Each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses, depending on the current project needs.

Today I want to briefly present how CMake allows joining repositories with its FetchContent and ExternalProject modules.

  • in Tools
  • 8 min read

Modern CMake is like inheritance

CMake has been created in 2000 by Bill Hoffman from Kitware. During the last 20 years, as of the time of this publication, it’s been constantly evolving by adding new features and expanding its support for third-party libraries. But the most significant additions were released in version 3.0 and are commonly called “Modern CMake”. Despite being available for more than 5 years, many programmers are still not using them!

Today I will show you one of the greatest “Modern CMake” feature, that behaves almost like C++ inheritance. But before we get there, let me briefly explain a few fundaments.