Category Archives: CMake

How to enable colored compiler output with CMake + VSCode

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Assuming you’re using the “CMake Tools” VSCode extension, here’s what works for me.

1 – Set CMAKE_COLOR_DIAGNOSTICS to ON in your environment

This makes CMake pass -fcolor-diagnostics to clang. If you build on the command line, you’ll now have color. But the VSCode “output” pane will still be non-colored.

2 – Install the “Output Colorizer” extension from IBM.

This adds color to the Output pane.

It looks like this:

Links:

https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/issues/174

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cmake-tools/issues/478

Being pedantic about C++ compilation

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Takeaways:

  • Don’t assume it’s safe to use pre-built dependencies when compiling C++ programs. You might want to build from source, especially if you can’t determine how a pre-built object was compiled, or if you want to use a different C++ standard than was used to compile it.
  • Ubuntu has public build logs which can help you determine if you can use a pre-built object, or if you should compile from source.
  • pkg-config is useful for generating the flags needed to compile a complex third-party dependency. CMake’s PkgConfig module can make it easy to integrate a dep into your build system.
  • Use CMake IMPORTED targets (e.g. BZip2::Bzip2) versus legacy variables (e.g. BZIP2_INCLUDE_DIRS and BZIP2_LIBRARIES).
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