A simple c++ project template with a focus on getting up and running quickly and good separation of components. If you have a small or simple project, you may never need to touch any build logic. This template relies on cmake, googletest and python.

./scripts/add-lib.py my_library
./scripts/add-bin.py my_executable -l my_library
make [debug|release]

This sequence of commands will create a library called my_library, add a failing unit test for my_library, add a new binary my_executable that takes a link dependency on my_library, build everything, then run unit tests.

After running the above, your project Structure should look something like the following:

project/
| debug/
| scripts/
| src/
| | my_executable/
| | | my_executable.cpp
| | | CMakeLists.txt
| | my_library/
| | | tests/
| | | | my_library_test.cpp
| | | | CMakeLists.txt
| | | my_library.h
| | | my_library.cpp
| | | CMakeLists.txt
| | CMakeLists.txt
| CMakeLists.txt
| Makefile

Components end up in their own directories under src, and make targets are generated per component. Libraries each get a tests subdirectory. Keeping things separate is nice - at least I think so. By convention all components use lower-case names - the add-bin and add-lib scripts enforce this.

To remove an added component, just delete the directory and remove the corresponding line in src/CMakeLists.txt

Two included python scripts add-lib and add-bin take care of setting up the build-goo for new libraries and binaries. Each require a single command line argument for the name of the new component. See the help output for more information (add-lib -h). By default, both of these scripts use GLOB patterns for *.c, *.cpp, and *.cxx for enumerating sources files. This means you don't have to manually list your source files in the respective CMakeLists.txt file - which can be a problem in some situations. The -no-glob argument allows you to use explicit source file lists instead.

There's a top-level makefile that provides some convince targets to take care of creating build directors, calling cmake, etc.

In-source builds are not allowed - builds must take place in a new directory (usually debug or release). While the top-level Makefile provides some shortcuts, you can get at all the provided target by running make in the build directory.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
make my_library

project/
| debug/
| | CMakeFiles/
| | bin/
| | | my_executable*
| | gtest/
| | lib/
| | | libmy_library.a
| | src/
| | tests/
| | | bin/
| | CMakeCache.txt
| | CTestTestfile.cmake
| | Makefile
| | cmake_install.cmake
| | compile_commands.json
| scripts/
| src/
| CMakeLists.txt
| Makefile

Generated files land in the build directory with executables under bin, libraries under lib and tests under tests/[lib|bin].