CMake - Installation On Windows

Here is a quick way to get started into development with CMake on Windows x64.

1. Getting Started

1.1. Downloads

• Download MinGW64 (posix, seh, msvcrt) from here.
• Download CMake (Windows x64) from here.

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1.2. Installation

• Install CMake in C:\Program Files\Cmake.
• Copy the minGW64 folder into C:\.
• Add the following binary paths to the PATH variable:
  • C:\minGW64\bin
  • C:\Program Files\Cmake\bin

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1.3. First Project

• The simplest project to build is a Hello world program. Hence we will add a main.cpp source:

#include <iostream>

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

• The corresponding cmake instruction would be the file CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)

# Project Name
project(HelloWorld)

# Add an executable with sources
add_executable(
    ${PROJECT_NAME} main.cpp
)

• To build the project now you should run the following commands

# compile
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles"   # Makefile for minGW
mingw32-make

# clean
cd ..
rmdir /s /q build

2. More

• Check out the CMake Brief reference for an overview of the commands.
• Check out how to integrate various C++ libraries.
• Check out how to publish your own CMake Library professionally.