How to build cmake project on windows

In this article I will provide you with the information on how to setup CMake and compile your C++ project. You may also use this to compile third-party projects and solutions that you depend upon.

Table of Contents

• What do you need to follow through this tutorial
• Why do we need CMake?
• Install CMake
• Creating our project
• How to generate build files
• Adding more source files
• Using CMake GUI to build
• Using Visual Studio 2017/2019

What do you need to follow through this tutorial

• You would need to have some basic knowledge of C++ as I will not be explaining why or what the application that we are compiling does. Start from this post that explains the basics of C++.
• There are some terminal commands being executed but you will not need previous knowledge on Command Prompts / PowerShell. Check out this post on how to operate the command line.
• Visual Studio installed with support for C++ compilation. CMake will automatically detect your Visual Studio installation later.

Why do we need CMake?

C++ is an old language. Do not make a mistake it is really powerful and provides a lot of control over low level memory and system programming. As an old language though it misses some of the modern high-level language concepts. When programming in C++ it is hard to target multiple platforms as there is no unified project structure as well as good package management.

On other languages like Java, C# and python the code is always compiled to an intermediate language or is interpreted directly at runtime. That code is then run by a special virtual machine that translates it to commands for the specific machine.

This is what CMake strives to solve but the other way around. It is a project generator. On Windows one would want to work with Visual Studio project files and solutions and on Linux one would rather have Make files. This essentially means that we unify our project files under CMake which on the other hand generates the project files for the specific system.

Read more: You can check out more on how the compiler and linker work to gain in depth knowledge on why the process is different than other languages.

Install CMake

To install cmake you open this page: https://cmake.org/download/

You should find the corresponding binary for your windows installation (x64, x86) and download the .msi file. It should roughly look something like this:

The install wizard is pretty straightforward just make sure that on the question “By default CMake does not add its directory to the system PATH” you check one of the options Add CMake to system Path so that later we can execute commands from the windows terminal.

Creating our project

We will have the most simple example for our first compile using CMake. We will start as always with our “Hello, World!” application using a single .cpp file to demonstrate how CMake will generate a project and compile that file.

We will have the following project structure:

root
├── src/
│  └── main.cpp
└── CMakeLists.txt

In our “main.cpp” file we will write down the following “Hello, World!” application:

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    std::cout << "Hello, World!" << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

The “CMakeLists.txt” file is our base of operations when using CMake. It can link other CMakeLists files which later on will make it easy to include dependency (vendor) projects and compile them along our application. We will start with the most basic content for our file so that we can compile our “main.cpp” into a simple console application:

# This will set the minimum version of CMake required to generate the projects
# CMakeLists has its own language and features and as more and more versions are 
# added it will include new keywords and options
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.18) 

# This will give our project a name
project(Main)

# This instructs CMake that we want to generate an executable file from this project
# Other options would be add_library but this is a topic for another time
# You can notice that we also pass on the path to our cpp file
add_executable(Main src/main.cpp)

How to generate build files

To start generating the cmake projects we will need to open a terminal window inside the root folder where our CMakeLists.txt file resides. This can easily be done by clicking shift + right mouse button inside the folder and then selecting “Open PowerShell window here”. After we’ve done that we can execute the following commands:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

This will create the directory build, then move the terminal working directory to build and then generate projects using the “CMakeLists.txt” file in the previous directory as noted by the two dots after cmake (single dot means current directory, two dots means one directory up).

You can also specify the source and build directories by adding the following flags:

cmake -B [build directory] -S [source directory]

After executing this command the “build” folder will be filled with project files. Double clicking the “Main.sln” file would open up Visual Studio. If you’ve followed up until now you would have 3 projects in the solution explorer as follows:

• Main – this is the project that we want to build and that will generate our executable.

• ALL_BUILD – by default this will be set up as the startup project and it will run Main and ZERO_CHECK.

• ZERO_CHECK – as our project is not actually controlled by visual studio but generated externally we cannot add source/header files inside of visual studio itself. To do that we would need to append them into the add_executable command inside of “CMakeLists.txt”. The ZERO_CHECK project would then monitor for changes in that file and regenerate VS projects based on the changes.

Now that we have Visual Studio open we can build the project. Use the shortcut ctrl + shift + b to run the build command or click on the top menu “Build” -> “Build Solution”.

Note: If you still have the command line open you can also use the command

cmake --build . --config Debug

You can run the project by right clicking on the “Main” project in Visual Studio solution explorer and selecting the option “Set as Startup Project”. On the top navigation bar you will notice a play button with the label of “Local Windows Debugger” that you can click to run your project (shortcut is ctrl + F5).

Note: If you’ve built the project using the command line you can run the application that we just compiled by using the following commands:

cd Debug
.Main.exe

Adding more source files

To add other files to the project you would need to create them in the target directory using Windows Explorer and then add them to CMakeLists. Lets say for example that we decide to move the “#include <iostream>” and all future includes into another file. We also want to create a header file called “main.h” and another C++ file called “other.cpp” resulting in the following following changes:

root
├── build/
│  └── Generated Build Files
├── src/
│  ├── main.h
│  ├── main.cpp
│  └── other.cpp
└── CMakeLists.txt

Create a file called main.h in the src directory with the following content

void print_hello_world();

Then we modify main.cpp to include main.h instead of <iostream> and also call the newly defined function. This would result into the following file:

#include "main.h"

int main() {
    
print_hello_world();
    return 0;
}

Lets also add another file that would implement the print_hello_world function and call it other.cpp:

#include <iostream>

void print_hello_world() {
    std::cout << "Hello, World!" << std::endl;
}

At this point visual studio would not be able to compile the project as it will not know about other.cpp. It would be able to find the main.h file. To fix this we need to open CMakeLists.txt and modify the following line:

add_executable(Main src/main.cpp src/other.cpp src/main.h)

Though it is no need to add the header file it is a good practice to list all source files so that you can also see them listed in the solution explorer later.

You can now run build. Visual Studio will display a prompt if you want to reload the projects. Be sure to click on “Reload All”.

Using CMake GUI to build

To use the visual CMake application is even easier. As CMake is already installed on Windows you can open the “Start” menu and start typing “cmake”. Select the “CMake (cmake-gui)” that should appear as a search result.

After you open it a window will appear where you can put on some options for generating the project files. First thing you should locate the “Where is the source code” input field and select the folder where your project resides (the root CMakeLists.txt file). Then you can select a directory where the projects will be generated by giving a value to the “Where to build the binaries”. In my case I create a separate directory but you can also just write the path to the “build” directory again. After these two fields are filled in you can click on the “Generate” button bellow. It should look something like this:

After the projects are generated you can repeat the steps above for the new directory “build-gui”. You will also have the option to click on the “Open Project” button in the CMake GUI Window.

Using Visual Studio 2017/2019

On the latest versions of visual studio you can open alternatively open the root directory with Visual Studio. It will automatically detect that it is a CMake type of project. The benefit of opening the solution this way is that Visual Studio will not actually generate a solution. It will use another build system called “Ninja” that I will talk about in another post. This system is faster on rebuilds which makes it more efficient to compile C++ code.

You can follow up with:

• What are CMake targets
• How to manage dependencies in CMake: Vanilla vs Vcpkg
• More posts on CMake
• Posts on the topic of C++ game development

CMake projects in Visual Studio

CMake is a cross-platform, open-source tool for defining build processes that run on multiple platforms. This article assumes you’re familiar with CMake. For more information about CMake, see the CMake documentation. The CMake tutorial is a good starting point to learn more.

[!NOTE]
CMake has become more and more integrated with Visual Studio over the past few releases. To see the documentation for your preferred version of Visual Studio, use the Version selector control. It’s found at the top of the table of contents on this page.

::: moniker range=»>=msvc-160″

Visual Studio’s native support for CMake enables you to edit, build, and debug CMake projects on Windows, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), and remote systems from the same instance of Visual Studio. CMake project files (such as CMakeLists.txt) are consumed directly by Visual Studio for the purposes of IntelliSense and browsing. cmake.exe is invoked directly by Visual Studio for CMake configuration and build.

Installation

C++ CMake tools for Windows is installed as part of the Desktop development with C++ and Linux Development with C++ workloads. Both C++ CMake tools for Windows and Linux Development with C++ are required for cross-platform CMake development.

For more information, see Install the C++ Linux workload in Visual Studio.

IDE integration

When you open a folder containing a CMakeLists.txt file, the following things happen.

• Visual Studio adds CMake items to the Project menu, with commands for viewing and editing CMake scripts.

• The Solution Explorer displays the folder structure and files.

• Visual Studio runs CMake and generates the CMake cache file (CMakeCache.txt) for the default configuration. The CMake command line is displayed in the Output Window, along with other output from CMake.

• In the background, Visual Studio starts to index the source files to enable IntelliSense, browsing information, refactoring, and so on. As you work, Visual Studio monitors changes in the editor and also on disk to keep its index in sync with the sources.

[!NOTE]
Starting in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.1 Preview 2, if your top-level CMakeLists.txt exists in a subfolder and not at the root of the workspace, you’ll be prompted whether you’d like to enable CMake integration or not. For more information, see CMake partial activation.

Once CMake cache generation has succeeded, you can also view your projects organized logically by targets. Choose the Select View button on the Solution Explorer toolbar. From the list in Solution Explorer — Views, select CMake Targets View and press Enter to open the targets view:

:::image type=»content» source=»media/cmake-targets-view2.png» alt-text=»Screenshot of the Solution Explorer Views window with the C Make Targets View highlighted.»:::

Choose the Show All Files button at the top of Solution Explorer to see all the CMake-generated output in the out/build/<config> folders.

Use the CMakeLists.txt file in each project folder just as you would in any CMake project. You can specify source files, find libraries, set compiler and linker options, and specify other build system-related information. For more information on CMake language services provided by Visual Studio, see Editing CMakeLists.txt files.

Visual Studio uses a CMake configuration file to drive CMake cache generation and build. For more information, see Configuring CMake projects and Building CMake projects.

To pass arguments to an executable at debug time, you can use another file called launch.vs.json. For more information on debugging cross-platform CMake projects in Visual Studio, see Debugging CMake projects.

Most Visual Studio and C++ language features are supported by CMake projects in Visual Studio. Examples include:

• Edit and Continue for CMake projects

• Incredibuild integration for CMake projects

• AddressSanitizer support for CMake projects

• Clang/LLVM support

[!NOTE]
For other kinds of Open Folder projects, an additional JSON file CppProperties.json is used. This file is not relevant for CMake projects.

Configuring CMake projects

The CMake configure step generates the project build system. It’s equivalent to invoking cmake.exe from the command line. For more information on the CMake configure step, see the CMake documentation.

Visual Studio uses a CMake configuration file to drive CMake generation and build. CMakePresets.json is supported by Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10 or later and is the recommended CMake configuration file. CMakePresets.json is supported directly by CMake and can be used to drive CMake generation and build from Visual Studio, from VS Code, in a Continuous Integration pipeline, and from the command line on Windows, Linux, and Mac. For more information on CMakePresets.json, see Configure and build with CMake Presets. CMakeSettings.json is available for customers using an earlier version of Visual Studio. For more information on CMakeSettings.json, see Customize CMake build settings.

When you make significant changes to your CMake configuration file or a CMakeLists.txt file, Visual Studio will automatically run the CMake configure step. You can invoke the configure step manually: Select Project > Configure Cache from the toolbar. You can also change your configuration preferences in Tools > Options > CMake > General.

If the configure step finishes without errors, then the information that’s available drives C++ IntelliSense and language services. It’s also used in build and debug operations.

You can also open an existing CMake cache in Visual Studio. For more information, see Open an existing cache.

Customize configuration feedback and notifications

By default, most configuration messages are suppressed unless there’s an error. To see all messages, select Tools > Options > CMake > Enable verbose CMake diagnostic output.

You can also disable all CMake cache notifications (gold bars) by deselecting Show CMake cache notification.

Troubleshooting CMake cache errors

If you need more information about the state of the CMake cache to diagnose a problem, open the Project main menu or the CMakeLists.txt context menu in Solution Explorer to run one of these commands:

• View CMakeCache.txt opens the CMakeCache.txt file from the build directory in the editor. Any edits you make here to CMakeCache.txt are wiped out if you clean the cache. To make changes that persist after you clean the cache, see Customize CMake settings or Configure and build with CMake Presets.

• Delete Cache and Reconfigure deletes the build directory and reconfigures from a clean cache.

• Configure Cache forces the generate step to run even if Visual Studio considers the environment up to date.

Building CMake projects

The CMake build step builds an already generated project binary tree. It’s equivalent to invoking cmake --build from the command line. For more information on the CMake build step, see the CMake documentation.

To build a CMake project, you have these choices:

1. In the toolbar, find the Startup Item dropdown. Select the preferred target and press F5, or choose the Run button on the toolbar. The project automatically builds first, just like a Visual Studio solution.

2. Right-click on CMake target with CMake Targets View active in the Solution Explorer and select Build from the context menu.

3. From the main menu, select Build > Build All. Make sure that a CMake target is already selected in the Startup Item dropdown in the toolbar.

As you would expect, build results are shown in the Output Window and Error List.

Edit build settings

Visual Studio uses a CMake configuration file to drive CMake builds. CMake configuration files encapsulate build options like native build tool switches and environment variables. If CMakePresets.json is your active configuration file, see Configure and build with CMake Presets. If CMakeSettings.json is your active configuration file, see Customize CMake build settings. CMakePresets.json is available in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10 or later and is the recommended CMake configuration file.

Debugging CMake projects

All executable CMake targets are shown in the Startup Item dropdown in the toolbar. To start debugging, select one and press the Debug > Start Debugging button in the toolbar. In a CMake project, the «Current document» option is only valid for .cpp files.

The Debug or F5 commands first build the project if changes have been made since the previous build. Changes to the CMake configuration file (CMakePresets.json or CMakeSettings.json) or a CMakeLists.txt causes the CMake cache to be regenerated.

You can customize a CMake debugging session by setting properties in the launch.vs.json file. To customize debug settings for a specific target, select the target in the Startup Item dropdown and press Debug > Debug and Launch Settings for <active-target>. For more information on CMake debugging sessions, see Configure CMake debugging sessions.

Just My Code for CMake projects

When you build for Windows using the MSVC compiler, CMake projects have support for Just My Code debugging. To change the Just My Code setting, go to Tools > Options > Debugging > General.

Edit and Continue for CMake projects

When you build for Windows with the MSVC compiler, CMake projects have support for Edit and Continue. Add the following code to your CMakeLists.txt file to enable Edit and Continue.

if(MSVC)
  target_compile_options(<target> PUBLIC "/ZI")
  target_link_options(<target> PUBLIC "/INCREMENTAL")
endif()

Attach to a CMake project running on Linux

Visual Studio allows you to debug a process running on a remote Linux system or WSL and debug it with the GDB debugger. To get started, select Debug > Attach to Process…, set the Connection type to SSH, and select your Connection target from the list of connections in the Connection Manager. Select a process from the list of available processes and press Attach. GDB must be installed on your Linux machine. For more information on SSH connections, see the Connection Manager

CMake partial activation

In Visual Studio 2022 version 17.1 and later, CMake functionality won’t be enabled automatically if your root folder doesn’t contain a CMakeLists.txt file. Instead, a dialog will prompt you on whether you’d like to enable CMake functionality for your project. If you decline, CMake cache generation won’t start and CMake configurations (from CMakeSettings.json or CMakePresets.json) won’t appear in the configuration dropdown. If you accept, you’ll be taken to a workspace-level configuration file, CMakeWorkspaceSettings.json (stored in the .vs directory), to specify the folders you’d like to enable CMake for. (These folders contain your root CMakeLists.txt files).

The accepted properties are:

You can reach CMakeWorkspaceSettings.json through the Project > CMake Workspace Settings menu command at any time, even if CMake functionality is currently disabled.

Open an existing cache

When you open an existing CMake cache file (CMakeCache.txt), Visual Studio doesn’t try to manage your cache and build tree for you. Your custom or preferred tools have complete control over how CMake configures your project.

You can add an existing CMake cache to an open project. It’s done the same way you’d add a new configuration. For more information, see our blog post on opening an existing cache in Visual Studio.

[!NOTE]
The default existing cache experience relies on cmake-server, which was removed from CMake in version 3.20. To continue using existing cache functionality in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10 and later, take one of these steps:

• Manually install CMake version 3.19 or lower. Then, set the cmakeExecutable property in your existing cache configuration to use that version of CMake.
• In your existing cache configuration, set the cacheGenerationCommand property to let Visual Studio request the necessary CMake file-based API files. For more information on that property, see CMakeSettings.json reference.
• Use a query file to request the CMake file-based API files when generating your cache before it’s opened in Visual Studio. For query file instructions, see the next section, Advanced CMake cache troubleshooting.

Advanced CMake cache troubleshooting

Visual Studio uses the CMake file-based API (in versions 3.14 and later) to populate the editor with information specific to your project structure. For more information, see the C++ team blog post on multi-root workspaces and file-based API.

Before generating the CMake cache, your custom or preferred tools may need to create a query file named .cmake/api/v1/query/client-MicrosoftVS/query.json in your build output folder (the folder that contains CMakeCache.txt). The query file should contain this content:

{"requests":[{"kind":"cache","version":2},{"kind":"cmakeFiles","version":1},{"kind":"codemodel","version":2}]}

When your custom or preferred tools generate your cache, CMake places files under .cmake/api/v1/response that Visual Studio uses to populate the editor with information specific to your project structure.

Editing CMakeLists.txt files

To edit a CMakeLists.txt file, right-click on the file in Solution Explorer and choose Open. If you make changes to the file, a yellow status bar appears and informs you that IntelliSense will update. It gives you a chance to cancel the update operation. For information about CMakeLists.txt, see the CMake documentation.

As soon as you save the file, the configuration step automatically runs again and displays information in the Output window. Errors and warnings are shown in the Error List or Output window. Double-click on an error in the Error List to navigate to the offending line in CMakeLists.txt.

Language services for CMake

Language services for CMake are available in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 or later. It supports code navigation features like Go To Definition, Peek Definition, and Find All References for CMake variables, functions, and targets in CMake script files. For more information, see Code Navigation for CMake Scripts.

CMake project manipulation

CMake project manipulation is available in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 or later. Project manipulation enables you to add, remove, and rename source files and targets in your CMake project without manually editing your CMake scripts. When you add or remove files from the Solution Explorer, Visual Studio automatically edits your CMake project. There could be more than one place where it makes sense to add or remove a reference to a CMake script. If so, Visual Studio asks you where you want to make the change and displays a preview of the proposed changes. For step-by-step instructions, see Add, Remove, and Rename Files and Targets in CMake Projects.

IntelliSense for CMake projects

By default, Visual Studio uses the IntelliSense mode that matches the compiler and target architecture specified by the active CMake configuration.

If CMakePresets.json is your active CMake configuration file, then you can specify IntelliSense options using intelliSenseMode and intelliSenseOptions in the Visual Studio Settings vendor map. For more information, see the Visual Studio Settings vendor map reference.

If CMakeSettings.json is your active CMake configuration file, then you can specify IntelliSense options using intelliSenseMode in CMakeSettings.json. For more information, see the CMakeSettings.json reference.

Configure IntelliSense with CMake toolchain files

In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 and later, Visual Studio automatically configures IntelliSense in CMake projects based on CMake variables when you use a CMake toolchain file. For more information, see Configure IntelliSense with CMake Toolchain Files.

Vcpkg integration

CMake projects opened in Visual Studio integrate with vcpkg, a cross-platform C/C++ dependency manager. Before using vcpkg with Visual Studio, you must run vcpkg integrate install. For instructions and more information on vcpkg, see the vcpkg documentation.

If CMakeSettings.json is your active configuration file, Visual Studio automatically passes the vcpkg toolchain file (vcpkg.cmake) to CMake. This behavior is disabled automatically when you specify any other toolchain in your CMake Settings configuration.

If CMakePresets.json is your active configuration file, you’ll need to set the path to vcpkg.cmake in CMakePresets.json. We recommend using the VCPKG_ROOT environment variable instead of an absolute path to keep the file shareable. For more information, see Enable vcpkg integration with CMake Presets. CMakePresets.json is available in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10 or later and is the recommended CMake configuration file.

Run CMake from the command line

If CMakePresets.json is your active CMake configuration file, then you can easily reproduce your local builds outside of Visual Studio. For more information, see Run CMake from the command line or a CI pipeline. CMakePresets.json is supported in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10 or later and is the recommended CMake configuration file.

If CMakeSettings.json is your active CMake configuration file, then you’ll need to manually pass the arguments that are encoded in your CMakeSettings.json file to CMake. If you have installed CMake from the Visual Studio Installer, you can run it from the command line by following these steps:

1. Run the appropriate vsdevcmd.bat file (x86/x64). For more information, see Building on the command line .

2. Switch to your output folder.

3. Run CMake to build or configure your app.

::: moniker-end

::: moniker range=»msvc-150″

Visual Studio 2017 has rich support for CMake, including cross-platform CMake projects. The Visual C++ Tools for CMake component uses the Open Folder feature to enable the IDE to consume CMake project files (such as CMakeLists.txt) directly for the purposes of IntelliSense and browsing. Both Ninja and Visual Studio generators are supported. If you use a Visual Studio generator, it generates a temporary project file and passes it to MSBuild. However, the project is never loaded for IntelliSense or browsing purposes. You also can import an existing CMake cache.

Installation

Visual C++ Tools for CMake is installed as part of the Desktop development with C++ and Linux Development with C++ workloads.

For more information, see Install the C++ Linux workload in Visual Studio.

IDE integration

When you choose File > Open > Folder to open a folder containing a CMakeLists.txt file, the following things happen:

• Visual Studio adds a CMake menu item to the main menu, with commands for viewing and editing CMake scripts.

• Solution Explorer displays the folder structure and files.

• Visual Studio runs CMake and optionally generates the CMake cache for the default configuration, which is x86 Debug. The CMake command line is displayed in the Output Window, along with other output from CMake.

• In the background, Visual Studio starts to index the source files to enable IntelliSense, browsing information, refactoring, and so on. As you work, Visual Studio monitors changes in the editor and also on disk to keep its index in sync with the sources.

You can open folders containing any number of CMake projects. Visual Studio detects and configures all the «root» CMakeLists.txt files in your workspace. CMake operations (configure, build, debug), C++ IntelliSense, and browsing are available to all CMake projects in your workspace.

You can also view your projects organized logically by targets. Choose Targets view from the dropdown in the Solution Explorer toolbar:

Visual Studio uses a file called CMakeSettings.json to store environment variables or command-line options for CMake. CMakeSettings.json also enables you to define and store multiple CMake build configurations. You can conveniently switch between them in the IDE.

Otherwise, use the CMakeLists.txt just as you would in any CMake project to specify source files, find libraries, set compiler and linker options, and specify other build system-related information.

If you need to pass arguments to an executable at debug time, you can use another file called launch.vs.json. In some scenarios, Visual Studio automatically generates these files. You can edit them manually, or even create the file yourself.

[!NOTE]
For other kinds of Open Folder projects, two additional JSON files are used: CppProperties.json and tasks.vs.json. Neither of these are relevant for CMake projects.

Import an existing cache

When you import an existing CMakeCache.txt file, Visual Studio automatically extracts customized variables and creates a pre-populated CMakeSettings.json file based on them. The original cache isn’t modified in any way. It can still be used from the command line, or with whatever tool or IDE used to generate it. The new CMakeSettings.json file is placed alongside the project’s root CMakeLists.txt. Visual Studio generates a new cache based the settings file. You can override automatic cache generation in the Tools > Options > CMake > General dialog.

Not everything in the cache is imported. Properties such as the generator and the location of the compilers are replaced with defaults that are known to work well with the IDE.

To import an existing cache

1. From the main menu, choose File > Open > CMake:

   

   This command brings up the Import CMake from Cache wizard.

2. Navigate to the CMakeCache.txt file that you want to import, and then choose OK. The Import CMake Project from Cache wizard appears:

   

   When the wizard completes, you can see the new CMakeCache.txt file in Solution Explorer next to the root CMakeLists.txt file in your project.

Building CMake projects

To build a CMake project, you have these choices:

1. In the General toolbar, find the Configurations dropdown. It’s probably showing «Linux-Debug» or «x64-Debug» by default. Select the preferred configuration and press F5, or choose the Run (green triangle) button on the toolbar. The project automatically builds first, just like a Visual Studio solution.

2. Right-click on CMakeLists.txt in Solution Explorer and select Build from the context menu. If you have multiple targets in your folder structure, you can choose to build all or only one specific target.

3. From the main menu, select Build > Build Solution (F7 or Ctrl+Shift+B). Make sure that a CMake target is already selected in the Startup Item dropdown in the General toolbar.

You can customize build configurations, environment variables, command-line arguments, and other settings in the CMakeSettings.json file. It lets you make changes without modifying the CMakeLists.txt file. For more information, see Customize CMake settings.

As you would expect, build results are shown in the Output Window and Error List.

In a folder with multiple build targets, you can specify which CMake target to build: Choose the Build item on the CMake menu or the CMakeLists.txt context menu to specify the target. If you enter Ctrl+Shift+B in a CMake project, it builds the current active document.

Debugging CMake projects

To debug a CMake project, choose the preferred configuration and press F5. Or, press the Run button in the toolbar. If the Run button says «Select Startup Item», select the dropdown arrow and choose the target that you want to run. (In a CMake project, the «Current document» option is only valid for .cpp files.)

The Run or F5 commands first build the project if changes have been made since the previous build.

You can customize a CMake debugging session by setting properties in the launch.vs.json file. For more information, see Configure CMake debugging sessions.

Editing CMakeLists.txt files

To edit a CMakeLists.txt file, right-click on the file in Solution Explorer and choose Open. If you make changes to the file, a yellow status bar appears and informs you that IntelliSense will update. It gives you a chance to cancel the update operation. For information about CMakeLists.txt, see the CMake documentation.

As soon as you save the file, the configuration step automatically runs again and displays information in the Output window. Errors and warnings are shown in the Error List or Output window. Double-click on an error in the Error List to navigate to the offending line in CMakeLists.txt.

CMake configure step

When significant changes are made to the CMakeSettings.json or to CMakeLists.txt files, Visual Studio automatically reruns the CMake configure step. If the configure step finishes without errors, the information that’s collected is available in C++ IntelliSense and language services. It’s also used in build and debug operations.

Multiple CMake projects may use the same CMake configuration name (for example, x86-Debug). All of them are configured and built (in their own build root folder) when that configuration is selected. You can debug the targets from all of the CMake projects that participate in that CMake configuration.

You can limit builds and debug sessions to a subset of the projects in the workspace. Create a new configuration with a unique name in the CMakeSettings.json file. Then, apply the configuration to those projects only. When that configuration is selected, IntelliSense and the build and debug commands only apply to those specified projects.

Troubleshooting CMake cache errors

If you need more information about the state of the CMake cache to diagnose a problem, open the CMake main menu or the CMakeLists.txt context menu in Solution Explorer to run one of these commands:

• View Cache opens the CMakeCache.txt file from the build root folder in the editor. (Any edits you make here to CMakeCache.txt are wiped out if you clean the cache. To make changes that persist after the cache is cleaned, see Customize CMake settings.)

• Open Cache Folder opens an Explorer window to the build root folder.

• Clean Cache deletes the build root folder so that the next CMake configure step starts from a clean cache.

• Generate Cache forces the generate step to run even if Visual Studio considers the environment up to date.

Automatic cache generation can be disabled in the Tools > Options > CMake > General dialog.

Single file compilation

To build a single file in a CMake project, right-click on the file in Solution Explorer. Choose Compile from the pop-up menu. You can also build the currently open file in the editor by using the main CMake menu:

Run CMake from the command line

If you have installed CMake from the Visual Studio Installer, you can run it from the command line by following these steps:

1. Run the appropriate vsdevcmd.bat file (x86/x64). For more information, see Building on the Command Line.

2. Switch to your output folder.

3. Run CMake to build or configure your app.

::: moniker-end

::: moniker range=»msvc-140″

In Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio users can use a CMake generator to generate MSBuild project files, which the IDE then consumes for IntelliSense, browsing, and compilation.

::: moniker-end

See also

Tutorial: Create C++ cross-platform projects in Visual Studio
Configure a Linux CMake project
Connect to your remote Linux computer
Customize CMake build settings
CMakeSettings.json schema reference
Configure CMake debugging sessions
Deploy, run, and debug your Linux project
CMake predefined configuration reference

C++, Системы сборки, C

Рекомендация: подборка платных и бесплатных курсов таргетированной рекламе — https://katalog-kursov.ru/