CMake Cheat Sheet

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).