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Overview

CXXPods is a command line tool that allows for both simple c/c++ and very complex multi-platform, cross-compiling dependency managerment.

Think of it as a highly customizable (obviously because it needs to support complex native code) NPM or Maven like package management solution that deals in source artifacts instead of compiled or binary artifacts.

It comes as an amalgamation of other attempts including awesome projects like mason, hunter & conan.

In order to be as comprehensive as possible, there is a single enforced guideline, your project must you CMake.

Install

Linux, macOS

On linux or macOS you can run the following snippet to install a binary version of cxxpods, no need to install node, npm or anything else. It will be installed to /usr/local/bin

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cxxpods/cxxpods/master/scripts/client-install.sh | bash

NPM (Windows, Linux, macOS)

You can also install via npm if you have node and npm installed.

npm i -g cxxpods

Quickstart

It takes a few simple steps.

• Create a cxxpods.yml file in the root of your project

name: cxxpods-example

dependencies:
  opencv: 3.4.1

• Then run configure

cxxpods project configure

• In your root CMakeLists.txt BEFORE your project declaration add something like the following:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)

# INSERT THIS LINE
include(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/.cxxpods/cxxpods.cmake)

project(cxxpods_example)

Repos and Recipes

CXXPODS works with recipes in repositories. The global default repository is here: github.com/cxxpods/cxxpods-registry

Dependency/Recipe

Each dependency/recipe in a repo must contain a cxxpods.yml file at a minimum. Assuming it needs to be findable as a library within CMake, it also must have a finder template.

Recipe (cxxpods.yml)

name: opencv
repository: 
  url: https://github.com/opencv/opencv.git

cmake:
  flags:
    CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE: Release
    BUILD_SHARED_LIBS: OFF
    BUILD_JPEG: OFF
    BUILD_JASPER: OFF
    BUILD_PNG: ON
    BUILD_ZLIB: ON
    BUILD_IPP_IW: OFF
    BUILD_ITT: OFF
    BUILD_JAVA: OFF
    BUILD_PROTOBUF: OFF
    WITH_PROTOBUF: OFF
    WITH_CAROTENE: OFF
    WITH_CUBLAS: OFF
    WITH_CUDA: OFF
    WITH_CUFFT: OFF
    WITH_FFMPEG: OFF
    WITH_GPHOTO2: OFF
    WITH_GSTREAMER: OFF
    WITH_GTK: OFF
    WITH_ITT: OFF
    WITH_IPP: OFF
    WITH_JASPER: OFF
    WITH_LAPACK: OFF
    WITH_MATLAB: OFF
    WITH_NVCUVID: OFF
    WITH_OPENCL: OFF
    WITH_OPENCLAMDBLAS: OFF
    WITH_OPENCLAMDFFT: OFF
    WITH_OPENEXR: OFF
    WITH_PTHREADS_PF: OFF
    WITH_V4L: OFF
    WITH_WEBP: OFF
  findTemplate: cmake/FindOpenCV.cmake.hbs

dependencies:
  libtiff: Release-v4-0-9
  zlib: v1.2.11
  libpng: v1.6.33
  libjpeg: 8.4.0

Finder Template

A finder template (as well as all templates used within CXXPODS) is a Handlebars template, i.e. cmake/FindOpenCV.cmake.hbs.

if(NOT OpenCV_FOUND)
    set(_OpenCV_LIBS 
        calib3d features2d flann highgui imgcodecs
        imgproc ml objdetect photo shape stitching superres
        video videoio videostab core
        )


    foreach(_lib ${_OpenCV_LIBS})    
        set(_target OpenCV::${_lib})  
        set(_libPath {{cxxpodsLibDir}}/${CMAKE_STATIC_LIBRARY_PREFIX}opencv_${_lib}${CMAKE_STATIC_LIBRARY_SUFFIX})  
        
        list(APPEND OpenCV_LIBRARIES ${_libPath})
        list(APPEND OpenCV_TARGETS ${_target})
        if (NOT TARGET ${_target}) 
            add_library(${_target} STATIC IMPORTED)
            set_target_properties(${_target} PROPERTIES
                IMPORTED_LOCATION ${_libPath}
            )
        endif()
    endforeach()

    set(OpenCV_FOUND true)
endif()

Template Variables

• cxxpodsLibDir the install lib dir
• cxxpodsIncludeDir the install include dir

Add your Own Repo

There are a large number of reasons to add your own recipe repos

• Custom configuration of recipes, examples include
  • Recipes configured for a Raspberry Pi specifically.
  • A different FFMPEG configuration that enables CUDA
  • OpenCV with Java/Python support
• Private recipes
  • Yes we are happy for you to use CXXPODS commercially
• Offline recipes

Structure of a Repo

A repo is really in simplest terms, a folder with child folders that are each named respective to a given dependency, i.e. “opencv”.

TOP OF REPO
| -> opencv
| | -> cmake
| | | -> FindOpenCV.cmake.hbs
| | -> cxxpods.yml

Example Commands

note you can add your own repos public or private both locally and git based as follows

# GITHUB EXAMPLE PUBLIC OR PRIVATE
cxxpods repo add https://github.com/myorg/my-cxxpods.git
# OR A LOCAL DIR
cxxpods repo add file:///var/cxxpods-local-on-disk

Tools

First and foremost - this is not a page that is dedicated to David Hasselhoff.

More info will follow soon enough.

Android

CXXPODS supports Android out of the box. Simply add android: true to your cxxpods.yml, also you will likely want to exclude the host toolchain as well. Below is a very brief example.

Android vs Cross-Compilation

The primary difference, and it is significant, is that the dependencies are created/built when you run Sync in Android Studio as opposed to when you run configure normally. Tools are still built during configure.

Config

The cxxpods.yml should be in the module folder of your project, not the root, i.e. <root>/app/cxxpods.yml.

name: my-android-project
android: true
toolchainExcludeHost: true

dependencies:
	opencv: 3.4.1

Configure

After creating your config file, you need to run configure before adding to your CMakeLists.txt.

# Get to your app modules
cd <root>/app

# Configure
cxxpods configure

CMakeLists.txt

Just as you do with a regular project, add the cxxpods.cmake that was generated to your project.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)

# INSERT THIS LINE
include(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/.cxxpods/cxxpods.cmake)

project(cxxpods_example)

Cross-Compiling & Toolchains

Create your standard cmake toolchain file and use it as follows:

name: cxxpods-example
profiles: [Debug,Release]

toolchains:
  "aarch64-linux-gnu": cmake/aarch64.cmake 
  # file would be at this relative location from the project root

dependencies:
  protobuf: 3.1.0
  opencv: 3.4.1

In order to use with non-cmake dependencies and scripts add the following to the top of your toolchain file:

include(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/.cxxpods/cxxpods.toolchain.cmake)

and add the following to the bottom of your toolchain file

cxxpods_toolchain_export()

Other Commands

TBD