Link SOFA as an external dependency in a c++ project

[Bruno Marques]

Hi there,

I would like to use SOFA packages as external dependencies of a c++ program, but can’t figure out how to specify it in my CMake file.

When using a library like OpenCV for instance, it is possible to do a ‘find_package’ after only providing an OpenCV_DIR entry in CMake. I would like to do the same with Sofa, by doing the following:

set(SofaFramework_DIR path_to_sofa_install/lib/cmake/SofaFramework CACHE PATH “sofa”)
find_package(SofaFramework REQUIRED)

but when I try to configure my project, I get cmake errors as it can’t find its dependencies (TinyXML / ZLib etc.):

CMake Error at C:/Users/bruno/dev/sofa/build/install/lib/cmake/SofaFramework/SofaFrameworkConfig.cmake:36 (find_package):
  By not providing "FindTinyXML.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has
  asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "TinyXML", but
  CMake did not find one.

  Could not find a package configuration file provided by "TinyXML" with any
  of the following names:

    TinyXMLConfig.cmake
    tinyxml-config.cmake

  Add the installation prefix of "TinyXML" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set
  "TinyXML_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files.  If
  "TinyXML" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has
  been installed.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  CMakeLists.txt:77 (find_package)

The CMakeLists Cheatsheet tells me to specify CMAKE_MODULE_PATH to link sofa as an other program’s dependency:

CMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/path/to/sofa/lib/cmake cmake /path/to/myProject/src

which I unsuccessfully did.

Is there a way, preferably in one single CMake entry (like SOFA_DIR) to simply specify where to find Sofa packages?

[jnbrunet]

Hey Bruno,

In my case, I usually set the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH variable to the sofa’s install cmake directory.

ex:

cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/home/user/sources/sofa/build/install/lib/cmake

Note that if I use the source’s cmake directory or the build’s cmake directory (without the /install in the previous path), this may not work, you really need to do a “make install” inside your build directory.

After that, I generally use, for example,

find_package(SofaGeneral REQUIRED)
find_package(SofaBase REQUIRED)
(…)
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} SofaComponentGeneral SofaBaseTopology)

Hope that helps,
Jean-Nicolas

[Bruno Marques]

Hi Jean-Nicolas

Thanks for your quick answer.
I tried what you said, but I got the same issue on windows. Though, I used CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH successfully on Linux, so it must be a CMake issue specific to Windows.

Does anyone have any idea why it wouldn’t work on Windows?
Cheers,
Bruno

[Hugo]

hey @bmarques

an old topic ! is this still an issue ?

Hugo

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