CMake Macro Reference: boost_add_executable

Creates a new executable from source files.

boost_add_executable(exename
                     source1 source2 ...
                     [COMPILE_FLAGS compileflags]
                     [feature_COMPILE_FLAGS compileflags]
                     [LINK_FLAGS linkflags]
                     [feature_LINK_FLAGS linkflags]
                     [LINK_LIBS linklibs]
                     [feature_LINK_LIBS linklibs]
                     [DEPENDS libdepend1 libdepend2 ...]
                     [feature]
                     [NO_INSTALL])

where exename is the name of the executable (e.g., "wave"). source1, source2, etc. are the source files used to build the executable, e.g., cpp.cpp. If no source files are provided, "exename.cpp" will be used.

This macro has a variety of options that affect its behavior. In several cases, we use the placeholder "feature" in the option name to indicate that there are actually several different kinds of options, each referring to a different build feature, e.g., shared libraries, multi-threaded, debug build, etc. For a complete listing of these features, please refer to the page on [wiki:CMakeBuildFeatures CMake Build Features].

The options that affect this macro's behavior are:

COMPILE_FLAGS

Provides additional compilation flags that will be used when building the executable.

feature_COMPILE_FLAGS

Provides additional compilation flags that will be used only when building the executable with the given feature (e.g., SHARED_COMPILE_FLAGS when we're linking against shared libraries). Note that the set of features used to build the executable depends both on the arguments given to boost_add_executable (see the "feature" argument description, below) and on the user's choice of variants to build.

LINK_FLAGS

Provides additional flags that will be passed to the linker when linking the executable. This option should not be used to link in additional libraries; see LINK_LIBS and DEPENDS.

feature_LINK_FLAGS

Provides additional flags that will be passed to the linker when linking the executable with the given feature (e.g., MULTI_THREADED_LINK_FLAGS when we're linking a multi-threaded executable).

LINK_LIBS

Provides additional libraries against which the executable will be linked. For example, one might provide "expat" as options to LINK_LIBS, to state that the executable will link against the expat library binary. Use LINK_LIBS for libraries external to Boost; for Boost libraries, use DEPENDS.

feature_LINK_LIBS

Provides additional libraries to link against when linking an executable built with the given feature.

DEPENDS

States that this executable depends on and links against a Boostlibrary. The arguments to DEPENDS should be the unversioned name of the Boost library, such as "boost_filesystem". Like LINK_LIBS, this option states that the executable will link against the stated libraries. Unlike LINK_LIBS, however, DEPENDS takes particular library variants into account, always linking to the appropriate variant of a Boost library. For example, if the MULTI_THREADED feature was requested in the call to boost_add_executable, DEPENDS will ensure that we only link against multi-threaded libraries.

feature

States that the executable should always be built using a given feature, e.g., SHARED linking (against its libraries) or MULTI_THREADED (for multi-threaded builds). If that feature has been turned off by the user, the executable will not build.

NO_INSTALL

Don't install this executable with the rest of Boost.

OUTPUT_NAME

If you want the executable to be generated somewhere other than the binary directory, pass the path (including directory and file name) via the OUTPUT_NAME parameter.

Example

The Boost.Wave library also includes the wave tool, which provides a complete C89/C99/C++ preprocessor. It uses the Wave, Program Options, Filesystem, and Serialization libraries in Boost and is built with the following invocation of boost_add_executable:

boost_add_executable(wave cpp.cpp 
  DEPENDS boost_wave boost_program_options boost_filesystem boost_serialization
  )

This example is from ​tools/wave/CMakeLists.txt.

Where Defined

This macro is defined in the Boost Core module in ​tools/build/CMake/BoostCore.cmake