Code2Pro: How to Generate Eclipse CDT Project Files Using CMake

howto-generate-eclipse-cdt-project-using-cmake.md

Code2Pro: How to Generate Eclipse CDT Project Files Using CMake

Scope

Tested with CMake & Eclipse on Ubuntu 16.

Steps

1. Create a folder for Eclipse
2. Run CMake with -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" in the Eclipse folder & out of the source code folder
3. Open Eclipse, import the project via "General", select generated Eclipse project folder
4. Code & run

To keep things simple, I provided a Makefile and you can copy it to the same folder with CMakeLists.txt and then run:

make eclipse

# To delete the generated eclipse folder:
make eclean

NOTE: Eclipse CDT4 needs special CMake flag so it could index C++11 headers with proper C-processor defines. Make sure you pass -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_ARG1=-std=c++11 to CMake.

References

• https://cmake.org/Wiki/Eclipse_CDT4_Generator
• https://codeyarns.com/2014/01/15/how-to-create-eclipse-project-from-cmake-project/
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18358389/eclipse-indexer-proper-c11-syntax-highlighting-when-generating-projects-with-c
• https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.6/generator/Eclipse%20CDT4.html

Makefile

.PHONY: all init build clean bclean rebuild fresh eclipse

PROJECT_DIR=$(shell pwd)
BASENAME=$(shell basename `pwd`)
BUILD_DIR=${HOME}/projects/_build/build-${BASENAME}
ECLIPSE_ROOT=${HOME}/eclipse/workspaces
ECLIPSE_PROJ=${ECLIPSE_ROOT}/cproject-${BASENAME}

all: init build run

rebuild: clean build

fresh: bclean all

init:
	mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}
	cd ${BUILD_DIR} && cmake -G Ninja ${PROJECT_DIR}
	ln -f -s ${BUILD_DIR} .build_ninja

build:
	cd ${BUILD_DIR} && ninja

run:
	$(info Running: ${BUILD_DIR}/${BASENAME})
	${BUILD_DIR}/${BASENAME}

clean:
	cd ${BUILD_DIR} && ninja clean

bclean:
	rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR} .build_ninja

eclipse:
	mkdir -p ${ECLIPSE_PROJ}
	cd ${ECLIPSE_PROJ} && cmake -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_ARG1=-std=c++11 ${PROJECT_DIR}
	ln -f -s ${ECLIPSE_PROJ} .build_eclipse

eclean:
	rm -rf ${ECLIPSE_PROJ} .build_eclipse