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Modern C++ Template

A quick C++ template for modern CMake projects, aimed to be an easy to use starting point.

This is my personal take on such a type of template, thus I might not use the best practices or you might disagree with how I do things. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

Features

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes.

Prerequisites

This project is meant to be only a template, thus versions of the software used can be change to better suit the needs of the developer(s). If you wish to use the template as-is, meaning using the versions recommended here, then you will need:

Note: You also need to be able to provide CMake a supported generator.

Installing

It is fairly easy to install the project, all you need to do is clone if from GitHub or generate a new repository from it (also on GitHub).

If you wish to clone the repository, rather than generate from it, you simply need to run:

git clone https://github.com/filipdutescu/modern-cpp-template/

After finishing getting a copy of the project, with any of the methods above, create a new folder in the include/ folder, with the name of your project. Edit cmake/SourcesAndHeaders.cmake to add your files.

You will also need to rename the cmake/ProjectConfig.cmake.in file to start with the exact name of your project. Such as cmake/MyNewProjectConfig.cmake.in. You should also make the same changes in the GitHub workflows provided, notably .github/workflows/ubuntu.yml, in which you should replace the CMake option -DProject_ENABLE_CODE_COVERAGE=1 to -DMyNewProject_ENABLE_CODE_COVERAGE=1.

Finally, change "Project" from CMakeLists.txt, from

project(
  "Project"
  VERSION 0.1.0
  LANGUAGES CXX
)

to the exact name of your project, i.e. using the previous name it will become:

project(
  MyNewProject
  VERSION 0.1.0
  LANGUAGES CXX
)

To install an already built project, you need to run the install target with CMake. For example:

cmake --build build --target install --config Release

# a more general syntax for that command is:
cmake --build <build_directory> --target install --config <desired_config>

Building the project

To build the project, all you need to do, after correctly installing the project, is run a similar CMake routine to the the one below:

mkdir build/ && cd build/
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/absolute/path/to/custom/install/directory
cmake --build . --target install

Note: The custom CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX can be omitted if you wish to install in the default install location.

More options that you can set for the project can be found in the cmake/StandardSettings.cmake file. For certain options additional configuration may be needed in their respective *.cmake files (i.e. Conan needs the CONAN_REQUIRES and might need the CONAN_OPTIONS to be setup for it work correctly; the two are set in the cmake/Conan.cmake file).

Generating the documentation

In order to generate documentation for the project, you need to configure the build to use Doxygen. This is easily done, by modifying the workflow shown above as follows:

mkdir build/ && cd build/
cmake .. -D<project_name>_ENABLE_DOXYGEN=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/absolute/path/to/custom/install/directory
cmake --build . --target doxygen-docs

Note: This will generate a docs/ directory in the project's root directory.

Running the tests

By default, the template uses Google Test for unit testing. Unit testing can be disabled in the options, by setting the ENABLE_UNIT_TESTING (from cmake/StandardSettings.cmake) to be false. To run the tests, simply use CTest, from the build directory, passing the desire configuration for which to run tests for. An example of this procedure is:

cd build          # if not in the build directory already
ctest -C Release  # or `ctest -C Debug` or any other configuration you wish to test

# you can also run tests with the `-VV` flag for a more verbose output (i.e.
#GoogleTest output as well)

End to end tests

If applicable, should be presented here.

Coding style tests

If applicable, should be presented here.

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our how you can become a contributor and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

Versioning

This project makes use of SemVer for versioning. A list of existing versions can be found in the project's releases.

Authors

License

This project is licensed under the Unlicense - see the LICENSE file for details