This post explains how to setup a development environment for C and C++ projectsusing Clang as compiler, CMake as build system, CLion as IDE and Conanas package manager. The name 4 Cs is cool, but not my idea, it has beencoined by well known C++ blogger Arne Metz, authorof the great Simplify C++ blog
The JetBrains (formerly IntelliJ) from Czech Republic has offered many excellent IDEs for various website and application developers. For example, the IntelliJ IDEA has been recognized as one of the best Java developing tools in the industry. Here, of course, what AppNee concerns about is all the approaches that can effectively activate JetBrains/IntelliJ all products. Self-signed certificates? Use (with care) the -c sslVerify option for git: git -c sslVerify=false clone blahblah. That should work. I don't set it on config globally or on repos because I think it's 'risky' so I rather use it on the git calls I need. GitHub Student Developer Pack account. Smart cross-platform IDE for C and C. Powerful Python & Django IDE. IDE for Web & PHP. Should we have at least 50 licenses to set up and use the license server? We don’t want to set up a floating license server. JETBRAINS - LICENSE SERVER. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. Educational license and save your activation code. On this page there are links to download various products. Click on the CLion link which will take you back to the CLion home page. Now click on the 'Download' button near the top-right. On the Download page, download the Windows version of CLion.
Though Clang has some support in Windows, its usage there is still low compared with MSVC,and Apple-Clang is the default on OSX, so it has not special difficulties. This postwill use Ubuntu 14.04. As example, we will develop a simple application using thewell known POCO and Boost libraries.
Setting up Clang C/C++ compiler
The default compiler in Ubuntu is GNU/gcc, so we have to install first Clang:
Installed this way, clang will not add itself to the path. It is true thatsetting environment variables CC and CXX is enough for most use cases. Butfor others, as building boost, it is much simpler if clang is in the path,otherwise editing .bjam files might be necessary. Currently, the conan package for boost,does not do that, so it requires clang to be in the path. Lets add a couple of links(most likely we can also use other ways as update-alternatives):
Setting up latest CMake (meta) build system
The default CMake version bundled with Ubuntu 14 is still 2.8.12, which is really old.CMake current version is 3.5 at the time of this writing, so lets install it. Go toCMake downloads and get it. In this case, the tar.gzwas retrieved and installed, prepending the bin subfolder to the path, so it getshigher priority. I did this way because I have to keep CMake 2.8.12 as default, butit is easy to add it permanently to the path.
We will be using CMake “Unix Makefiles” generators. Though it is possible to passthe compilers to CMake in the command line, I find it error prone, so I usuallyprefer to set the CC and CXX environment variables:
Clion License Server Github Plugin
This is also convenient for later CLion usage with this compiler.
Setting up Conan C/C++ package manager
To install conan in your computer, the easiest way is with Python package:
You might need to use sudo if you are installing it globally, not necessaryif using a virtualenv.
Set up the project
Inside the folder there is a simple conanfile.txt defining our dependencies:
Let’s install the dependencies. We will use a temporary folder called .conan(you can use any name), as the CLion editor uses an external build folder. Usinga known and close folder for conan temporary files allows easy management of dependencies:
Note the final --build=missing. Most packages in conan provide binaries for the mainstream compilers,MSVC in Win, GNU/gcc in Linux and Apple-Clang in OSX. So, it is expected that pre-compiled binariesfor CLang in Linux will not be available, so we have to tell conan to build them from sources.Go and grab a coffee, it will build Poco, Boost and some other libs!
This install step will generate 2 files: conanbuildinfo.cmake with some CMake variablesdefined inside, as include paths and library names and conaninfo.txt which stores your currentconfiguration. You can use in parallel many configurations if you want, just place each one in aseparate folder.
You can check the installed dependencies with:
Developing with CLion
CLion is a cross-platform C/C++ IDE from JetBrains.Let’s build our application with CLion. As we already have defined CC and CXX environment variables, launching CLion inour terminal will automatically use CLang as default compiler.
If you go to File->Settings, you could see the compiler is Clang:
It is possible too to use the CMake variables -D CMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang-3.6 -D CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++-3.6defined in the CLion IDE, to define the compiler. Note that typically a CMake cache clean&restart might be necessary.Now, it is possible to do such clean&restart without restarting the IDE in Menu->Tools->CMake->Reset Cache and Reload Project(the other option is Menu->File->InvalidateCache&Restart, but as it restarts the IDE, it is slower). The clang compiler will be used in your builds, but it will not show as default in the Settings dialog.
From CLion CMakeLists.txt project file, we can load the generated conanbuildinfo.cmake.
CLion will be able to autocomplete from both Poco and Boost headers:
Clion License Key
That is all! You can now select in CLion the “timer” target, build it, and run it!
Conclusions
Setting up a development environment for C++ with these 4 tools is not complicated.Basically make sure that CLang is in the path, and that CMake is using it (throughthe environment variables CC and CXX) instead of the sytem GNU/gcc compiler.
Also I found more intuitive to launch CLion with those variable defined, so it detectsthe CLang compiler and shows it in the Settings dialog. It is possible to use cmake command lineparameters -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang-3.6 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++-3.6 in the same CLionSettings dialog, but a CMake cache restart is typically necessary, as CMake cache onlystores the compiler the first invocation (which is automatically done by CLion, before able to setthe command line parameters).
Conan packages (Poco, Boost and their dependencies: Zlib, electric-fence…) have built finewith Clang, but it is also possible that some other conan packages have not been thoroughlytested yet with CLang, and they might eventually fail to build. Please contribute in thatcase, submitting an issue to the package repository.