📦 CCPM - Custom Cmake Package Manager

🧑‍💻 Are you tired of watching time fade away as CMake recompiles Assimp for the sixth time today just because you had to do a rebuild of your own code?

🖖 Do you have your CMakeLists.txt full of add_subdirectory for code that is not yours?

add_subdirectory(third_party/fmt)
find_package(fmt REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE fmt::fmt)

⚡ No worries, we’ve got the solution right here!

🌊 Flow

🚀 Install the tool

pip install ccpm

📃 Define your dependencies

The below example will install fmt, glfw and glm with custom defines.

Create a simple ccpm.toml in the same folder of main 'CMakeLists.txt' similar to this one:

[[git]]
repo_url = "https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt"
tag = "11.0.2"
defines = ["FMT_TEST=OFF", "FMT_DOC=OFF"]

[[git]]
repo_url = "https://github.com/glfw/glfw"
tag = "3.4"
defines = ["GLFW_BUILD_DOCS=OFF", "GLFW_BUILD_TESTS=OFF", "GLFW_BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF"]

[[git]]
repo_url = "https://github.com/g-truc/glm"
tag = "1.0.1"
defines = ["GLM_BUILD_TESTS=OFF", "GLM_ENABLE_CXX_20=ON"]

✍️ On your CMake

include(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/.ccpm/ccpm.cmake)  # This resolves modulepaths
add_executable(${AWESOME_TARGET} main.cpp)

# I'm working on simplify this stage but there is many differences between some packages
find_packge(fmt REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(${AWESOME_TARGET} PRIVATE fmt::fmt)

# Goal syntax
include(${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/.ccpm/ccpm.cmake)  # This will include the 'find_packge(fmt REQUIRED)'
target_link_libraries(${AWESOME_TARGET} PRIVATE ${CCPM_LINK_LIBRARIES})  # To include all of them
target_link_libraries(${AWESOME_TARGET} PRIVATE ${CCPM_LIB_fmt})         # For more granularity

🛠️ Donwload, Build and Install packages

ccpm -i   # To run download+build+install process (only needed if you change the .toml file)
ccpm -b   # Builds the main 'CMakeLists.txt' (by default in debug, add -r for release)

📝 Notes

This script assumes that you have the following commands installed:

• cmake
• git

In the roadmap:

• Other git providers ¹
• Add option to choose CMake Generator
• Automatic lib name and target gathering ²
• Zip files
• Others VCS like SVN or Hg

Lectures / Inspiration:

• It's Time To Do CMake Right

• CPM.cmake

• Bootstrap

Footnotes

1. The first iteration was github only. ↩

2. For cases like glfw where its find_package is glfw3 and its link_library is just glfw instead of glfw::glfw like the vast majority of the packages. ↩