Question

Can someone help me write my first makefile?

I have a helloworld.cpp code in /path/to/main/code/helloworld.cpp.
And then I have just included a .h file #include "SFML/network.hpp".

Now SFML library is saved in /path/to/SFML/Library

It would be great if someone can help me getting started in this. In the mean time, I am trying to read thru the literature but its very overwhelming.

Answer 1

Although you may need to learn the traditional GNU Makefile syntax in order to work with other projects, I recommend using CMake for your own projects because it is simpler and more intuitive.

A CMake file for your example would go in a file called CMakeLists.txt in the root directory of your project (same as the source in this case) and look like this:

project(HelloWorld)                        # Name your project.
add_executable(helloworld helloworld.cpp)  # Specify an executable to build.
link_directories(/path/to/SFML)            # Tell it where your libraries are.
target_link_libraries(helloworld Library)  # Tell it which library to link.

If you want to be able to #include headers from SFML without including the directory name every time, then you can also write:

include_directories(SFML)                  # Tell it where your headers are.

Further documentation on writing CMake files and running CMake is available on the website.

Lastly, CMake often gives a noisy but harmless message requesting that you put a line like this at the top of your CMakeLists.txt file:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)        # Quell warnings.

Cheers.