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CMake

CMake

Opendnp3 uses a build system generator called CMake. This means that the actual build files (e.g. a Makefile or Visual Studio .SLN) are generated from a artifact.

This allows the opendnp3 project to maintain a single project file for all platforms, minimizing per-platform maintenance. CMake also integrates nicely with C++ IDEs like KDevelop or CLion.

Optional Components

By default, CMake will not build tests, demos, or TLS support. You can enable each optional component individually by specifying them on the command line:

> cmake ../dnp3 -D<option>=ON
Option Name Comments
DNP3_ALL build all optional components below
DNP3_DEMO build the example programs
DNP3_DOTNET build the .NET bindings (Windows only)
DNP3_JAVA build the java bindings
DNP3_TEST build the unit test suites
DNP3_TLS build support for TLS channels (requires openssl)
DNP3_DECODER build the decoder module
DNP3_FUZZING build Google OSS-Fuzz integration

For example, to build the demos including TLS support:

> cmake ../dnp3 -DDNP3_DEMO=ON -DDNP3_TLS=ON

Build Options

Most of command-line options you can feed to CMake to generate your build environment are platform-independent. This documentation can't tell you everything that CMake can do. We only document some of the more common flags here for your convenience. All of the following examples assume an out-of-source build folder in a sibling directory to the opendnp3 distribution.

Static vs Dynamic Linking

You can switch between building static or dynamic linking using the STATICLIBS flag. Note that this flag is provided by the project and is not a CMake flag.

On Windows, static libs are the default. On Linux, dynamic libs are the default.

> cmake ../dnp3 STATICLIBS=ON   # build static libraries
> cmake ../dnp3 STATICLIBS=OFF  # build dynamic libraries

Debug vs Release

You can configure release vs debug builds using the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE flag. Note that on Windows, the generated SLN contains debug and release build targets already

> cmake ../dnp3 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
> cmake ../dnp3 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Non-default generators

By default, CMake will pick a generator to use if you don't tell it which one. You can see a list of all available generators using the help flag.

> cmake --help

You can then specify a specific generator, e.g. to do a full 64-bit build on Windows:

> mkdir build64
> cmake .. -DDNP3_ALL=ON -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64"

Setting the install prefix

If the default install location isn't where you want it to be, you can configure it using CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX.

On Debian-based systems this should probably be:

> cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/lib

On windows, you might put your libraries and headers somewhere like:

> cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\libs\opendnp3

Locating ASIO

The included sub-folder of the ASIO distribution (the folder that contains 'asio.hpp') needs to be on your include path, but there are several ways you can do this. You can choose the option that makes the most sense your particular build environment. CMake will try the following things in order to locate your ASIO.

1) Look to see if you checked out ASIO as a git submodule when cloning opendnp3

> git clone --recursive https://github.com/automatak/dnp3.git

2) look to see if the variable ASIO_HOME was defined via the cmake command line.

> cmake ../dnp3 -DASIO_HOME=C:/libs/asio-asio-1-12-2/asio/include

3) Check if ASIO_HOME is defined as an environment variable.

For instance, on Windows you might define your environment variable to look like this.

ASIO_HOME=C:/libs/asio-asio-1-12-2/asio/include

On Ubuntu Linux, you might add a line to ~/.bashrc as follows:

export ASIO_HOME=~/asio-asio-1-12-2/asio/include

Tip

If CMake can't find ASIO using one of the mechanisms above, it will just assume the headers are installed on the system. No checks are performed, so the build will fail is this isn't true