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CMake

(www.cmake.org)

SDL's build system was traditionally based on autotools. Over time, this approach has suffered from several issues across the different supported platforms. To solve these problems, a new build system based on CMake was introduced. It is developed in parallel to the legacy autotools build system, so users can experiment with it without complication.

The CMake build system is supported on the following platforms:

FreeBSD
Linux
Microsoft Visual C
MinGW and Msys
macOS, iOS, and tvOS, with support for XCode
Android
Emscripten
RiscOS
Playstation Vita

Building SDL

Assuming the source for SDL is located at ~/sdl

cd ~
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ~/sdl
cmake --build .

This will build the static and dynamic versions of SDL in the ~/build directory. Installation can be done using:

cmake --install .        # '--install' requires CMake 3.15, or newer

Including SDL in your project

SDL can be included in your project in 2 major ways:

using a system SDL library, provided by your (*nix) distribution or a package manager
using a vendored SDL library: this is SDL copied or symlinked in a subfolder.

The following CMake script supports both, depending on the value of MYGAME_VENDORED.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
project(mygame)

# Create an option to switch between a system sdl library and a vendored sdl library
option(MYGAME_VENDORED "Use vendored libraries" OFF)

if(MYGAME_VENDORED)
    add_subdirectory(vendored/sdl EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
else()
    # 1. Look for a SDL3 package, 2. look for the SDL3 component and 3. fail if none can be found
    find_package(SDL3 REQUIRED CONFIG REQUIRED COMPONENTS SDL3)
    
    # 1. Look for a SDL3 package, 2. Look for the SDL3maincomponent and 3. DO NOT fail when SDL3main is not available 
    find_package(SDL3 REQUIRED CONFIG COMPONENTS SDL3main)
endif()

# Create your game executable target as usual 
add_executable(mygame WIN32 mygame.c)

# SDL3::SDL3main may or may not be available. It is e.g. required by Windows GUI applications  
if(TARGET SDL3::SDL3main)
    # It has an implicit dependency on SDL3 functions, so it MUST be added before SDL3::SDL3 (or SDL3::SDL3-static)
    target_link_libraries(mygame PRIVATE SDL3::SDL3main)
endif()

# Link to the actual SDL3 library. SDL3::SDL3 is the shared SDL library, SDL3::SDL3-static is the static SDL libarary.
target_link_libraries(mygame PRIVATE SDL3::SDL3)

A system SDL library

For CMake to find SDL, it must be installed in a default location CMake is looking for.

The following components are available, to be used as an argument of find_package.

Component name	Description
SDL3	The SDL3 shared library, available through the `SDL3::SDL3` target ¹
SDL3-static	The SDL3 static library, available through the `SDL3::SDL3-static` target
SDL3main	The SDL3main static library, available through the `SDL3::SDL3main` target
SDL3test	The SDL3test static library, available through the `SDL3::SDL3test` target

Using a vendored SDL

This only requires a copy of SDL in a subdirectory.

CMake configuration options for platforms

iOS/tvOS

CMake 3.14+ natively includes support for iOS and tvOS. SDL binaries may be built using Xcode or Make, possibly among other build-systems.

When using a recent version of CMake (3.14+), it should be possible to:

build SDL for iOS, both static and dynamic
build SDL test apps (as iOS/tvOS .app bundles)
generate a working SDL_config.h for iOS (using SDL_config.h.cmake as a basis)

To use, set the following CMake variables when running CMake's configuration stage:

CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=<OS> (either iOS or tvOS)
CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=<SDK> (examples: iphoneos, iphonesimulator, iphoneos12.4, /full/path/to/iPhoneOS.sdk, appletvos, appletvsimulator, appletvos12.4, /full/path/to/AppleTVOS.sdk, etc.)
CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=<semicolon-separated list of CPU architectures> (example: "arm64;armv7s;x86_64")

Examples

for iOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK:

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphonesimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64

for iOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK, 64-bit only

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64

for iOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK, mixed 32/64 bit

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES="arm64;armv7s"

for iOS-Device, using a specific SDK revision (iOS 12.4, in this example):

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos12.4 -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64

for iOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK, and building SDL test apps (as .app bundles):

cmake ~/sdl -DSDL_TESTS=1 -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphonesimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64

for tvOS-Simulator, using the latest, installed SDK:

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=tvOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=appletvsimulator -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64

for tvOS-Device, using the latest, installed SDK:

cmake ~/sdl -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=tvOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=appletvos -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64`

SDL3::SDL3 can be an ALIAS to a static SDL3::SDL3-static target for multiple reasons. ↩︎

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