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flightgear/docs-mini/README-cmake.md

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= CMake in FlightGear overview =
CMake has evolved considerably over the years; if you're reading external tutorials on it, ensure
they mention 'modern CMake' since it's very different to the older style.
The top-level CMakeList.txt handles configuration options, finding dependencies, and scanning
the rest of the source tree. Across the source tree we add executables, includ the main FGFS
binary but also other helpers and utilities. We also define targets for helper libraries for
various reasons; for example to build some code with different include paths or flags.
Due to the original code structure, we use some helper functions to collect most of the
application sources into two global CMake variables, which are then read and added to the
main executable target, in `src/Main/CMakeList.txt`. Therefore, many subdirectories have
a trivial CMakeList.txt which simply calls the helper functions to add its sources:
```
include(FlightGearComponent)
set(SOURCES
foo.cxx
bar.cxx
)
set(HEADERS
foo.hxx
bar.hxx
)
flightgear_component(MyComp "${SOURCES}" "${HEADERS}")
```
== Configurations ==
Release builds are built with RelWithDebInfo; this is also the most useful configuration for
development, sicne on Windows, Debug is unusably slow. If trying to optimise performance,
keep in mind that compiler flags must be manually set for `RelWithDebInfo`; they are _not_
automatically inherited from `Release`.
== Dependencies ==
All dependencies should be handled via an `IMPORTED` target: this ensures that include paths,
link options, etc specific to the dependency are handled correclty across different platforms.
Depending on the dependency, it may supply a Foo-Config.cmake which defines such a target for
you automatically. Or there may be an existing `FindFoo.cmake` which does the same. If neither
of these situations exist, create a custom finder file in `CMakeModules`, following the existing
examples.
CMake tracks transitive dependencies correctly, so for example if your new dependency is used
in SimGear, it will automatically be added to the include / link paths for FlightGear based on
the SimGear build type.
If you encounter a case where a downstream target is missing an include path or flag for a
dependency, it typically indicates a bug in your dependency graph. Do _not_ fix it by maanually
modifying the downstream target's include path or flags. Rather, fix your dependency graph
and/or `INTERFACE` exports from your dependency, so that CMake can see the required transitive
dependencies correctly.