BUILDING-cmake.md

Building with CMake

This file contains in-depth information for building with the CMake build system.

Quickstart

Want to build it fast?

Required tools and dependencies:

• CMake 3.20 or higher.
• A working toolchain, e.g. Visual Studio on Windows or the build-essentials package on Ubuntu Linux.
• Main OpenGL libraries and development files.
• The GLEW Library on Windows.

To use the library in other projects, it is required to install it. Use CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to specify the installation directory.

From the project root, execute:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install-dir
cmake --build . --target install --config Release

If the build succeeded, you should now have the projectM libraries and include files in the specified install dir.

To use the library in other CMake projects, simply point the build to your install dir by adding it to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH and call find_package(libprojectM) in the other project's CMakeLists.txt.

If you use other build systems, you have to specify the include and library paths manually.

Selecting a specific project file generator

Building libprojectM does not require any specific CMake generator. It should work with any available generator, single- and multi-config.

To specify a CMake generator, use the -G switch, followed by the generator name. Some newer generators take an additional architecture using the -A switch. To list all available generators available on your current platform, leave out the generator name:

cmake -G

Additional information on the supported generators can be found in the CMake documentation.

Popular generators

By default, CMake will use the Unix Makefiles generator on Linux and macOS, which is a good choice and should work. Yet in some circumstances, you might want to generate project files for a specific build tool or IDE:

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir

A common alternative is the Ninja generator, which requires ninja to be installed. It is mostly a make replacement with less overhead and should work equally well. It is supported on all major platforms, including Windows:

cmake -G Ninja -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir

On macOS, CMake also supports the Xcode generator. It will create an .xcodeproj bundle which you can open in Xcode. It also adds support for automatic code signing, which might be required if your application using projectM needs to be notarized for store deployment.

cmake -G Xcode -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir

If you develop on Windows, you will possibly use Visual Studio. While recent visual Studio versions have CMake support built-in, you can still pre-generate the solution and project files and open the .sln file from the build directory. CMake provides a separate generator for each Visual Studio release. For Visual Studio 2019 you would use the Visual Studio 16 2019 generator and provide an additional architecture parameter:

cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A "X64" -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir

It is not possible to generate multi-arch solutions with CMake though. You need to create separate build directories and use the respective -A switch for each.

Project-specific configuration options

CMake has no built-in way of printing all available configuration options. You can either refer to the top-level CMakeLists.txt which contains a block of option and cmake_dependent_option commands, or use one of the available CMake UIs which will display the options after configuring the project once.

Important build switches

The following table also gives you an overview of important build options and their defaults. All options accept a boolean value (YES/NO, TRUE/FALSE, ON/OFF or 1/0) and can be provided on the configuration-phase command line using the -D switch.

CMake option	Default	Required dependencies	Description
BUILD_TESTING	OFF		Builds the unit tests.
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS	ON		Build projectM as shared libraries. If OFF, build static libraries.
ENABLE_PLAYLIST	ON		Builds and installs the playlist library.
ENABLE_EMSCRIPTEN	OFF	Emscripten	Build for the web using Emscripten. Only supports build as a static library and using GLES.
ENABLE_GLES	OFF	GLES	Use OpenGL ES 3 profile for rendering instead of the Core profile.

Note that ENABLE_GLES will be forcibly set to ON for Emscripten and Android builds, making it mandatory.

Experimental and application-dependent build switches

The following table contains a list of build options which are only useful in special circumstances, e.g. when developing libprojectM, trying experimental features or building the library for a special use-case/environment.

CMake option	Default	Required dependencies	Description
ENABLE_SDL_UI	ON	SDL2	Builds the SDL-based test application. Only used for development testing, will not be installed.
ENABLE_INSTALL	OFF	Building as a CMake subproject	Enable projectM install targets when built as a subproject via add_subdirectory().
ENABLE_DEBUG_POSTFIX	ON		Adds d (by default) to the name of any binary file in debug builds.
ENABLE_SYSTEM_GLM	OFF		Builds against a system-installed GLM library.
ENABLE_CXX_INTERFACE	OFF		Exports symbols for the ProjectM and PCM C++ classes and installs the additional the headers. Using the C++ interface is not recommended and unsupported.

Path options

There are also a few textual parameters that can be used to fine-tune the installation directories. Relative paths in the following options are appended to the value of CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX (which, on most UNIX platforms, defaults to /usr/local):

CMake option	Default	Description
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX	(OS dependent)	Base directory where the projectM libraries, includes and support files will be installed.
PROJECTM_BIN_DIR	bin	Directory where executables (e.g. the SDL standalone application) are installed.
PROJECTM_LIB_DIR	lib[64]	Directory where libprojectM is installed.
PROJECTM_INCLUDE_DIR	include	Directory where the libprojectM include files will be installed under.

Other options

Various other options for specific needs.

CMake option	Default	Description
CMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX	d (if ENABLE_DEBUG_POSTFIX is set)	Postfix appended to debug libraries.
CMAKE_INSTALL_BINDIR	bin	Another way to specify the binary installation directory. Used as default value for PROJECTM_BIN_DIR.
CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR	lib or lib64	Another way to specify the library installation directory. Used as default value for PROJECTM_LIB_DIR.
CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR	include	Another way to specify the include file installation directory. Used as default value for PROJECTM_INCLUDE_DIR.

Always perform out-of-tree builds!

Most classic IDEs and build systems directly make use of the source tree and create project files, temporary build artifacts (e.g. object files) and the final binaries in the same directory structure as the source files. An advantage of this approach is that you can find all compiled binaries side-by-side with their sources and generated headers are already in the same directories as the source files including them. This approach has some drawbacks though:

• Only a single build configuration is supported as files are overwritten in-place.
• A lot of noise is created in the source directory, making it hard to distinguish between generated and original source files.
• A very large .gitignore file is required to cover all unwanted files.
• Mistakes in the build scripts can overwrite source files, causing errors and destroy uncommitted work.

Some of these can be mitigated by providing additional targets (make clean and make distclean) or creating subdirectories for Debug/Release build configurations.

While CMake also supports in-tree builds, it is "discouraged" in the official documentation, for the above reasons. Building out-of-tree allows it to create multiple build directories with different configurations which do not influence each other in any way. If a build directory contains unwanted artifacts, and you want to start fresh, simply delete and recreate the whole directory - no work is lost.

This project follow this principle by treating the original source tree as read-only and avoiding potential conflicts:

• Everything under CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR must only be read, never changed or written to.
• Everything under CMAKE_BINARY_DIR is temporary and related to the current build configuration.
• When generating configuration-dependent files, use CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES and CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to create non-conflicting files in the build tree.

While this project will not force you to build out-of-tree, there is no mechanism to clean up the generated files after running cmake in-tree.

CMake build directory layout

If you are new to CMake, the way of how CMake creates the build directory and where it creates the build targets might be confusing. Here is a summary of what's in the build directory and how it is structured in general.

Using files from the build tree

It is generally not good practice to directly take binaries and other files from the build tree for packaging, for several reasons:

1. The directory structure is generated by CMake and depends on the generator used. The layout might change between CMake versions, even for the same generator.
2. On platforms with RPATH support, CMake will store absolute paths in executables and shared libraries which point to the absolute paths of any linked dependencies, either from the build tree or external libraries as well. These binaries are not relocatable and will most certainly not work if run on any other computer (or even on the same after deleting the build directory).
3. For some configurations, even Release build artifacts may contain debug symbols until they are installed.

It is fine to build and run executables from the build directory for development and debugging. For packaging or using libprojectM in other projects, always use the install target and copy files from there.

Generated files

In the top-level build directory, CMake creates a few files that are present on any platform:

• CMakeCache.txt: This file contains all variables and build settings CMake needs to remember from the first configuration run. This file can be edited on demand either manually or using a CMake UI to change any values. On the next build, CMake will regenerate the project files if this file has been modified.
• cmake_install.cmake: Contains generated install-related settings.
• install_manifest.txt: After installing the project, this file contains a list with absolute filenames of all installed files. It can be used for packaging or deleting installed files as CMake doesn't define an uninstall target.
• The top-level project file for use with the selected build toolset, e.g. Makefile, build.ninja, projectm.sln or projectm.xcodeproj, plus additional toolset-specific files.

The projectM build files generate additional files used in the build and install phases. These are scattered over the build tree, but installed into the proper directories. Do not try and gather these files yourself from the build tree.

Subdirectory structure

The rest of the directory structure generally resembles the source tree. Source directories containing a CMakeLists.txt file will also be created in the build tree with the same relative path. Each of these subdirectories contains a CMakeFiles directory with CMake-internal data, generated project files for the select toolset, e.g. makefiles and any temporary compile artifacts.

The directory structure is created by CMake and may change depending on the generator and CMake version used.

Executable and library locations

Build targets - shared/static libraries and executables - are created in the same subdirectory in the build tree as the CMakeLists.txt file that defines the target in the source tree (which, in most cases, resides in the same directory as the source files). Depending on the generator used, the binaries are created directly in the directory for single-configuration generators (like Unix Makefiles or Ninja) and in a subdirectory with the configuration name, e.g. Debug or Release, for multi-configuration generators like Xcode or Visual Studio 16 2019.

You may also find additional files and symbolic links in the same location depending on the platform, e.g. .pdb files on Windows.

Using libprojectM in other CMake projects

The projectM library can be used as a static library or shared library in other CMake-based projects to provide embedded audio visualization. It is highly recommended to build projectM as shared libraries for maximum compatibility and LGPL compliance.

The build directory is not structured in a way that other projects can make use of it. Use the install target to copy all required files to the configured installation prefix. You can customize the subdirectories for libraries, includes and binaries using the PROJECTM_<X>>_DIR variables when configuring the CMake project.

Importing libprojectM targets from the build tree

This approach is not recommended, but can be useful for projects that either require more in-depth access to the projectM library files, especially to headers that are not installed as part of the public API. This might cause issues if the internal headers change, but gives a broader set of features and more control to the developer.

Please refer to the ExternalProject CMake module documentation on how to set up the libprojectM build system for use in another project.

Importing libprojectM targets from an installed version

This is the recommended and supported way of importing libprojectM in your project. This project installs a set of CMake files in <PREFIX>/<LIBDIR>/cmake/projectM4, containing target definitions, version and dependency checks as well as any additional libraries required for linking. Other projects then use CMake's find_package command to search for these files in different locations.

In the case projectM libraries and headers are not installed in any system search path, you need to add either the install prefix path (the top-level install dir) or the directory containing the libraries (the lib dir by default) to the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH list.

If the package was found, you can then link against libprojectM by using the libprojectM::projectM target.

Depending on how the package was built, targets might be available for multiple configurations or only Release. CMake will automatically select the most appropriate one to link.

Include dirs, additional link dependencies and possible compiler options will be propagated to any target the library is linked to.

Using the optional playlist library

If you want to use the optional playlist library, you need to specifically request it as a component:

find_package(projectM4 COMPONENTS Playlist)

You can either use REQUIRED to force a fatal error if the component cannot be found or check if the target exists using:

if(TARGET libprojectM::playlist)
    # ...
endif()

If you link the playlist library, the main libprojectM::projectM target will be linked automatically as a dependency.

Example

Searches for projectM and the playlist library and links both to the application:

find_package(projectM4 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Playlist)

add_executable(MyApp main.cpp)

target_link_libraries(MyApp PRIVATE
        libprojectM::playlist
        )