(www.cmake.org)
SDL's build system was traditionally based on autotools. Over time, this approach has suffered from several issues across the different supported platforms. To solve these problems, a new build system based on CMake was introduced. It is developed in parallel to the legacy autotools build system, so users can experiment with it without complication.
The CMake build system is supported on the following platforms:
Assuming the source for SDL is located at ~/sdl
cd ~
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ~/sdl
cmake --build .
This will build the static and dynamic versions of SDL in the ~/build
directory.
Installation can be done using:
cmake --install . # '--install' requires CMake 3.15, or newer
SDL can be included in your project in 2 major ways:
The following CMake script supports both, depending on the value of MYGAME_VENDORED
.
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
project(mygame)
# Create an option to switch between a system sdl library and a vendored sdl library
option(MYGAME_VENDORED "Use vendored libraries" OFF)
if(MYGAME_VENDORED)
add_subdirectory(vendored/sdl EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
else()
# 1. Look for a SDL2 package, 2. look for the SDL2 component and 3. fail if none can be found
find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED CONFIG REQUIRED COMPONENTS SDL2)
# 1. Look for a SDL2 package, 2. Look for the SDL2maincomponent and 3. DO NOT fail when SDL2main is not available
find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED CONFIG COMPONENTS SDL2main)
endif()
# Create your game executable target as usual
add_executable(mygame WIN32 mygame.c)
# SDL2::SDL2main may or may not be available. It is e.g. required by Windows GUI applications
if(TARGET SDL2::SDL2main)
# It has an implicit dependency on SDL2 functions, so it MUST be added before SDL2::SDL2 (or SDL2::SDL2-static)
target_link_libraries(mygame PRIVATE SDL2::SDL2main)
endif()
# Link to the actual SDL2 library. SDL2::SDL2 is the shared SDL library, SDL2::SDL2-static is the static SDL libarary.
target_link_libraries(mygame PRIVATE SDL2::SDL2)
For CMake to find SDL, it must be installed in a default location CMake is looking for.
The following components are available, to be used as an argument of find_package
.
Component name | Description |
---|---|
SDL2 | The SDL2 shared library, available through the SDL2::SDL2 target 1 |
SDL2-static | The SDL2 static library, available through the SDL2::SDL2-static target |
SDL2main | The SDL2main static library, available through the SDL2::SDL2main target |
SDL2test | The SDL2test static library, available through the SDL2::SDL2test target |
This only requires a copy of SDL in a subdirectory.
CMake 3.14+ natively includes support for iOS and tvOS. SDL binaries may be built using Xcode or Make, possibly among other build-systems.
When using a recent version of CMake (3.14+), it should be possible to:
To use, set the following CMake variables when running CMake's configuration stage:
CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=<OS>
(either iOS
or tvOS
)CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=<SDK>
(examples: iphoneos
, iphonesimulator
, iphoneos12.4
, /full/path/to/iPhoneOS.sdk
,
appletvos
, appletvsimulator
, appletvos12.4
, /full/path/to/AppleTVOS.sdk
, etc.)CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=<semicolon-separated list of CPU architectures>
(example: "arm64;armv7s;x86_64")for iOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK:
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphonesimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
for iOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK, 64-bit only
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64
for iOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK, mixed 32/64 bit
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES="arm64;armv7s"
for iOS-Device, using a specific SDK revision (iOS 12.4, in this example):
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos12.4 -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64
for iOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK, and building SDL test apps (as .app bundles):
cmake ~/sdl -DSDL_TESTS=1 -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphonesimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
for tvOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK:
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=tvOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=appletvsimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
for tvOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK:
cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=tvOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=appletvos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64`
SDL2::SDL2
can be an ALIAS to a static SDL2::SDL2-static
target for multiple reasons. ↩︎