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Vcpkg Setup

How to setup vcpkg for a seamless development experience.

Introduction​

vcpkg is a cross-platform package manager for C++ libraries. It simplifies the process of acquiring, managing, and integrating open-source libraries into your projects. Whether you are building a project for Windows, Linux, or macOS, vcpkg provides a unified way to install dependencies and ensure compatibility across multiple platforms.

Setup​

After you finished installing vcpkg (checkout the official documentation for more information) you will have the VCPKG_ROOT environment variable set to the path where vcpkg is installed. If not go and re-read the official documentation.

With that you can easily run the Makefile at the root of the repository to build the project.

Manifest​

Vcpkg has what we call a manifest file, which is a file that lists all the dependencies that your project needs. This file is called vcpkg.json and is located at the root of the repository.

This will let us include dependencies in the project without having to manually install them via the vcpkg cli.

It will automatically install the dependencies when you build the project.

CMake and Vcpkg​

To use vcpkg with CMake, you need to set the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE variable to the path of the vcpkg toolchain file. This file is located at $VCPKG_ROOT/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake.

Here is an example of how to use it:

cmake -B build -S . -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$VCPKG_ROOT/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

To automate the process of setting the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE variable, you can use CMake presets.

CLion and Vcpkg​

At G-Epitech we are huge fans of Jetbrains products, so here is a little tip on how to use vcpkg with CLion.

First, you need to set the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE variable in the CMake options.

Go to File > Settings > Build, Execution, Deployment > CMake and add the following line to the CMake options field:

-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<VCPKG_ROOT>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

Another thing you can do is go to View > Tool Windows > Vcpkg and you will have a nice UI to manage your dependencies.