Maven-like dependency management for C++? [closed]

Answer 1

Edit:

Biicode is deprecated

Alternative: Conan.io

Answer 2

Make and GCC are a great combo for really good dependency checking.

GCC can generate 'make' dependency files automatically (-MD commandline switch), so as to be able to rebuild all sourcefiles that depend upon a given header, for example.

I have some simple rules that I cut-n-paste into my makefiles:

# compile c files   
%.o:    %.c
    ${CC} ${CFLAGS} -c $< -MD -MF $(<:%.c=%.dep) -o $@

# compile c++ files
%.opp:  %.cpp
    ${CPP} ${CPPFLAGS} -c $< -MD -MF $(<:%.cpp=%.dep) -o $@

Now if your object files are declared in say an OBJ_C and an OBJ_CPP list:

.PHONY: cleandep
cleandep:
    rm -f $(OBJ_C:%.o=%.dep) $(OBJ_CPP:%.opp=%.dep)

-include $(OBJ_C:%.o=%.dep) $(OBJ_CPP:%.opp=%.dep)

Make can of course track dependencies with other projects and such, e.g. rebuilding a shared libary as necessary, too.

For example, if your other teams always put their latest DLLs on some shared folder:

myapp: ${SRC_CPP} ${LIB_DIR}other_team.lib
  ...

${LIB_DIR}other_team.lib: /shared_folder/latest/other_team.lib
  cp /shared_folder/latest/other_team.lib ${LIB_DIR}other_team.lib

Answer 3

Try SCons

SCons is an Open Source software construction tool—that is, a next-generation build tool. Think of SCons as an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to autoconf/automake and compiler caches such as ccache. In short, SCons is an easier, more reliable and faster way to build software.

Answer 4

If you only want dependency management, try Ivy, it integrates nicely with Ant (and I assume NAnt can do the same based on this blog, which is linked from the Ivy site).

There is also Byldan, a .Net version of Maven. Don't know how well that will work for you though.

Answer 5

I recommend conan, which I was using these days. It's very powerful to maintain all the dependent libraries and binaries in your project.

Answer 6

For the dependency management, it exists a new project (it is a startup company) which is implementing this type of tool: https://github.com/biicode (a C++ dependency manager). You could add your dependencies and it should work.

Currently, the project's name is conan.io, they were acquired by JFrog.

UPDATE: The project is dead... Unfortunately, it seems the startup couldn't get enough premium paying customers, but the server seems is working fine...

UPDATE2: It seems there is a substitute project: conan.io (thanks @mucaho)