Basic C++ Project Template with CMake

hongping — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 05:37:02 +0000

It has been awhile since I last coded in C++. The last compiler I used was Borland Turbo C++. Ever since then, I shifted away from C++ to other interpreted languages like Perl and Python, and also bits of Javascript for web based works.

I am ramping up on C++ again as I am creating executable which performance is what I am craving for. I was looking at the tools for C++, and am pretty amazed with all the new (and open source!) technologies available today.

After hunting for a week or two (yes, I am a indecisive programmer, with a bit of procrastination as well), I settled down with clang as my compiler, CMake as the build files generator, and ninja as the build system. Also, not to forget about unit testing, I used Google Test.

The criteria of tool selection is largely based on cross OS compatibility. For e.g., I choose clang over MSVC or gcc mostly due to clang can easily be used in either Windows or Linux. Same as CMake. Using CMake, I don't need to worried about which build tool to be selected later. I opt for ninja as in Windows, that's the most sensible option for me since I am not using Visual Studio.

While setting up a C++ project of mine, I noticed that there will be a fixed structure of directory I could reuse, hence, I created this repository in Github, served as the basic template for my future project. It is known as hongping/cpp_template in Github.

The template comes with Google Test version 1.10.0 source code in the external directory, and the CMake files will build a basic test in tests directory which is to test the aliveness of the project. Once done build and execute tests\runUnitTests, you should be able to see the following

Running main() from ../external/googletest-release-1.10.0/googletest/src/gtest_main.cc
[==========] Running 1 test from 1 test suite.
[----------] Global test environment set-up.
[----------] 1 test from DOA
[ RUN      ] DOA.gtestAlive
[       OK ] DOA.gtestAlive (0 ms)
[----------] 1 test from DOA (0 ms total)

[----------] Global test environment tear-down
[==========] 1 test from 1 test suite ran. (4 ms total)
[  PASSED  ] 1 test.

Feel free to clone hongping/cpp_template and use this for your future project!

DEV Community: hongping

Basic C++ Project Template with CMake