Boiler plate for C++ projects

This is a boiler plate for C++ projects. What you get:

• Sources, headers and mains separated in distinct folders
• Use of modern CMake for much easier compiling
• Setup for tests using doctest
• Continuous testing with Travis-CI, Appveyor and GitHub Actions, with support for C++17.
• Code coverage reports, including automatic upload to Coveralls.io and/or Codecov.io
• Code documentation with Doxygen

Structure

.
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── app
│   └── main.cpp
├── include
│   ├── example.h
│   └── exampleConfig.h.in
├── src
│   └── example.cpp
└── tests
    ├── dummy.cpp
    └── main.cpp

Sources go in src/, header files in include/, main programs in app/, and tests go in tests/ (compiled to unit_tests by default).

If you add a new executable, say app/hello.cpp, you only need to add the following two lines to CMakeLists.txt:

add_executable(main app/main.cpp)   # Name of exec. and location of file.
target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE ${LIBRARY_NAME})  # Link the executable to lib built from src/*.cpp (if it uses it).

You can find the example source code that builds the main executable in app/main.cpp under the Build section in CMakeLists.txt. If the executable you made does not use the library in src/, then only the first line is needed.

Setup

Using the GitHub template

Click the Use this template button to make a new repository from this template.

NB: GitHub templates do not carry over submodules, which means you need to add those back before you can build the project. Run the following after you have generated your new project:

> git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/<your-repo-name>
> git submodule add https://github.com/onqtam/doctest.git external/doctest
> git commit -a --amend --no-edit
> git push --force

From command line

When starting a new project, you probably don't want the history of this repository. To start fresh you can use the setup script as follows:

> git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/bsamseth/cpp-project  # Or use ssh-link if you like.
> cd cpp-project
> bash setup.sh

The result is a fresh Git repository with one commit adding all files from the boiler plate.

Building

Build by making a build directory (i.e. build/), run cmake in that dir, and then use make to build the desired target.

Example:

> mkdir build && cd build
> cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=[Debug | Coverage | Release]
> make
> ./main
> make test      # Makes and runs the tests.
> make coverage  # Generate a coverage report.
> make doc       # Generate html documentation.

.gitignore

The .gitignore file is a copy of the Github C++.gitignore file, with the addition of ignoring the build directory (build/).

Services

If the repository is activated with Travis-CI, then unit tests will be built and executed on each commit. The same is true if the repository is activated with Appveyor.

If the repository is activated with Coveralls/Codecov, then deployment to Travis will also calculate code coverage and upload this to Coveralls.io and/or Codecov.io