Archive 17/01/2023.

Have multiple executable targets in cmake setting?

CE184

I have many different scenes for my game, eventually they will be merged into the single final application. But during development, I decoupled them as much as possible so I can work independently on each of them.
For testing reason, I have separate derived Application class to setup each scene. So I can use

URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN(XXXXSceneTestApplication)

and CMakeList

# Setup target with resource copying
setup_main_executable ()

would make any one to be run as the main entry point.

The problem is: I have to uncomment the URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN line in the TestApplication I want to test and also comment URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN in all other xxxxApplication file.

I know we can use multiple add_executable(target_xxx {src}) in CMakeList to have multiple targets build at the same time, and run whichever we want.
I wonder if I can do similar thing easily with Urho3D cmake setting?

SirNate0

If your executables are all in the same folder I suspect your could just call setup_main_executable for of them and use add_executable for the rest. I could be wrong about that, though, I’ve not delved too deeply into the build system.

CE184

My understanding is there could be only one URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN macro through out the whole project and setup_main_executable() just find that one automatically. If there are more than one URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN, the build just fail since there are duplicate main symbols.
I guess I need to have separate CMakeList files for each target? each file only include one URHO3D_DEFINE_APPLICATION_MAIN class and setup_main_executable there. But that would be tedious since actually all the other source cpp are shared.

Also, if I want to use add_executable for my main entry point for Urho3D, it might not work given all those links. it might not be that trivial since the setup_main_executable does a lot of extra things beside that?

CE184

After looking through the cmake macro, I figured out a way to do this.

Example CMakeList.txt

# All the same settings
# ...

# Define source files
file (GLOB_RECURSE SRC_CPP_FILES src/*.cpp)
# Remove all main target application files
list (FILTER SRC_CPP_FILES EXCLUDE REGEX "<your custom root application regex path>")
file (GLOB_RECURSE SRC_H_FILES src/*.h)

# repeat this for each target
set(TARGET_NAME your_first_target)
define_source_files (GROUP EXTRA_CPP_FILES ${SRC_CPP_FILES} <your first root application file that has the main macro> EXTRA_H_FILES ${SRC_H_FILES})
setup_main_executable()  # this will setup your_first_target

# repeat this for each target
set(TARGET_NAME your_second_target)
define_source_files (GROUP EXTRA_CPP_FILES ${SRC_CPP_FILES} <your second root application file that has the main macro> EXTRA_H_FILES ${SRC_H_FILES})
setup_main_executable()  # this will setup your_second_target

# repeat or you can write a for loop to add all root application that has the main macro
...

At least this one works, not sure if it’s a hack or standard way to do it.