Importing a CMake project into Eclipse CDT

Question

I have a native CMake project, and I want to use the Eclipse IDE with it so that it makes my development easier by providing auto-complete and and other features. I can't seem to find how to import the a CMake project in Eclipse.

PS: I am open for suggestions for other IDE's that work well with CMake.

Answer 1

KDevelop is an awesome IDE with great CMake support.

As for Eclipse - run this:

cd <project_dir> cmake -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" ./ 

This will produce Eclipse project for you.

Answer 2

Elaborating on arrowd's answer for Eclipse:

First, choose a directory for the CMake files. I prefer to keep my Eclipse workspaces in ~/workspaces and the source code in ~/src. Data which I need to build or test the project goes in subdirs of the project's workspace dir, so I suggest doing the same for CMake.

Assuming both your workspace and source folders are named someproject, do:

cd ~/workspaces/someproject mkdir cmake cd cmake cmake -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" ~/src/someproject 

Then, in your Eclipse workspace, do:

File > Import... > General > Existing Projects into Workspace

Check Select root directory and choose ~/workspaces/someproject/cmake. Make sure Copy projects into workspace is NOT checked.

Click Finish and you have a CMake project in your workspace.

Two things to note:

• I used cmake for the workspace subdir, but you can use a name of your choice.
• If you make any changes to your build configuration (such as editing Makefile.am), you will need to re-run the last command in order for Eclipse to pick up the changes.