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projectm/BUILDING-cmake.md
Kai Blaschke 6639a8252a
Update CMake build instructions 
Signed-off-by: Kai Blaschke <kai.blaschke@kb-dev.net>
2025-10-27 11:22:57 +01:00

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# 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 3.21 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:
```shell
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:
```shell
cmake -G
```
Additional information on the supported generators can be
found [in the CMake documentation](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-generators.7.html).
### Popular generators
By default, CMake will use the [`Unix Makefiles`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/generator/Unix%20Makefiles.html)
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:
```shell
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir
```
A common alternative is the [`Ninja`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/generator/Ninja.html) 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:
```shell
cmake -G Ninja -S /path/to/source/dir -B /path/to/build/dir
```
On macOS, CMake also supports the [`Xcode`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/generator/Xcode.html) 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.
```shell
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`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/generator/Visual%20Studio%2016%202019.html) generator
and provide an additional architecture parameter:
```shell
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`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX.html) (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`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR.html) must only be
read, never changed or written to.
- Everything under [`CMAKE_BINARY_DIR`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_BINARY_DIR.html) is temporary
and related to the current build configuration.
- When generating configuration-dependent files,
use [`CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES.html)
and [`CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE.html) 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`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/ExternalProject.html) 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](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/command/find_package.html#search-procedure).
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`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/variable/CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.html) 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:
```cmake
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:
```cmake
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:
```cmake
find_package(projectM4 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Playlist)
add_executable(MyApp main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(MyApp PRIVATE
libprojectM::playlist
)
```
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