Using CMake build system

CMake with Qt4

CMake - the cross-platform, open-source build system. CMake is a family of tools designed to build, test and package software. CMake is used to control the software compilation process using simple platform and compiler independent configuration files. CMake generates native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the compiler environment of your choice.

You can use it instead qmake, native Qt buid system. In this article i describe base functionality, that usualy used to build simple project.

This article show you to use cmake with Qt4. For Qt5 see here Qt5 CMake Manual

qmake typical .pro file

TEMPLATE = app
SOURCES += main.cpp  mainwindow.cpp
HEADERS+= mainwindow.h
FORMS += mainwindow.ui
RESOURCES+= main.qrc

As you can see, this project consists from 4 files. Three of them is implementing MainWindow class and one is main.cpp file.

CMakeLists.txt for same project

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.6)
project ( PROJECT_NAME )

# declaring files in your project

set ( SOURCES
 main.cpp
 mainwindow.cpp
)

set ( MOC_HEADERS
 mainwindow.h
)

set ( UIS
 mainwindow.ui
)

set ( RESOURCES
 main.qrc
)

# Next lines needed for building all Qt projects
find_package( Qt4 REQUIRED )
include( ${QT_USE_FILE} )
add_definitions( ${QT_DEFINITIONS} )
include_directories( ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR} )


# Next, using precompiler, compiler and linker

# using Qt meta-system (precompiler)
QT4_ADD_RESOURCES( RES_SOURCES ${RESOURCES} )
QT4_WRAP_UI( UI_HEADERS ${UIS} )
QT4_WRAP_CPP( MOC_SRCS ${MOC_HEADERS} )

# compile
add_executable( PROJECT_NAME ${SOURCES} ${MOC_SRCS} ${RES_SOURCES} ${UI_HEADERS} )
# or use line below instead, if you using Windows ™ Operating System.
#add_executable( PROJECT_NAME WIN32 ${SOURCES} ${MOC_SRCS} ${RES_SOURCES} ${UI_HEADERS} )

# build it (link libraries)
target_link_libraries( PROJECT_NAME ${QT_LIBRARIES} )

You may use CMake, but most of people advice, not to use CMake for simple projects, because qmake build system functionality is more than enough for simple projects.

Project using CMake

• KDE
• Second Life

Links

• Qt5 CMake Manual
• Official cmake Web-site