CMake Cheat Sheet

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Date Published:	January 8, 2017
Last Modified:	January 1, 2019

cmake Cheat Sheet

Below is a cheat sheet for the most common statements you will use in a CMakeLists.txt file!

By no means is this a complete reference guide, even for the mentioned functions (commonly they are just depicted in their most used form). For full documentation, see https://cmake.org/documentation/.

Sorted roughly by in which order you would use them (i.e. from compiling to linking).

Function	Explanation
`set(srcs file1.c file2.c ...)`	Creates a variable (e.g. `src`), and assigns something to it (e.g. the list file1.c file2.c). To clear a variable, do not provide second argument, e.g. `set(srcs)`.
`include_directories(dir1 dir2 ...)`	Adds the provided directory paths to the compilers list of directories that it will search for include files in, for any following targets.
`add_library(name STATIC/SHARED/MODULE file1.c file2.c ...)`	Adds a library target that will be build from the provided source files. DO NOT APPEND `lib_` to the name (this is done automatically by cmake depending on architecture).
`add_executable(name file1.c file2.c ...)`	Adds an executable target (as opposed to a library target).
`link_libraries(lib_1 lib_2 ...)`	Links the provided libraries to all following targets in the CMakeLists.txt file. This is deprecated. It is recommended you use `target_link_libraries()` instead.
`target_link_libraries(target_lib other_lib_1 other_lib_2 ...)`	Links the provided libraries to the specific target library. `link_libraries()` can be used to apply to libraries to all following targets (i.e. no specific target is provided), however, it is deprecated.
`install(TARGETS targets...)`	Used to place build output into certain directories on the user's system (as well as do things like assign privileges to these files).