Using SDL2 with CMake

This blog post shows how you can do it: Using SDL2 with CMake

On Linux you can use a recent CMake (e.g. version 3.7) and using SDL2 works out of the box.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.7)
project(SDL2Test)

find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED)
include_directories(SDL2Test ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS})

add_executable(SDL2Test Main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(SDL2Test ${SDL2_LIBRARIES})

Under Windows you can download the SDL2 development package, extract it somewhere and then create a sdl-config.cmake file in the extracted location with the following content:

set(SDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/include")

# Support both 32 and 64 bit builds
if (${CMAKE_SIZEOF_VOID_P} MATCHES 8)
  set(SDL2_LIBRARIES "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x64/SDL2.lib;${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x64/SDL2main.lib")
else ()
  set(SDL2_LIBRARIES "${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x86/SDL2.lib;${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/lib/x86/SDL2main.lib")
endif ()

string(STRIP "${SDL2_LIBRARIES}" SDL2_LIBRARIES)

When you now configure inside the CMake-GUI application there will be a SDL2_DIR variable. You have to point it to the SDL2 directory where you extracted the dev package and reconfigure then everything should work.

You can then include SDL2 headers by just writing #include "SDL.h".

Don't set the path to SDL2 by hand. Use the proper find command which uses FindSDL. Should look like:

find_file(SDL2_INCLUDE_DIR NAME SDL.h HINTS SDL2)
find_library(SDL2_LIBRARY NAME SDL2)
add_executable(ChickenShooter main.cpp)
target_include_directories(ChickenShooter ${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIR})
target_link_libraries(ChickenShooter ${SDL2_LIBRARY})    

If SDL2 is not found, you have to add the path to SDL2 to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH, that's the place where CMake looks for installed software.

If you can use Pkg-config, its use might be easier, see How to use SDL2 and SDL_image with cmake

If you feel more comfortable to use a FindSDL2.cmake file similar to FindSDL.cmake provided by CMake, see https://brendanwhitfield.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/using-cmake-with-sdl2/

You can also pull in the SDL source repository as a submodule and build/link it statically along with your main program via add_subdirectory() and target_link_libraries():

cmake_minimum_required( VERSION 3.18.0 )
project( sdl2-demo )

set( SDL_STATIC ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE )
set( SDL_SHARED OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE )
# 'external/sdl' should point at a SDL
# repo clone or extracted release tarball
add_subdirectory( external/sdl )

add_executable(
    ${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}
    "src/main.cpp"
    )
target_link_libraries( ${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME} SDL2main SDL2-static )

(At least as of the release-2.0.9 tag, possibly earlier.)

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.4)

project(ChickenShooter)

set(SDL2_INCLUDE_DIR C:/SDL/SDL2-2.0.3/include/SDL2)
set(SDL2_LIB_DIR C:/SDL/SDL2-2.0.3/lib/x64)

include_directories(${SDL2_INCLUDE_DIR})
link_directories(${SDL2_LIB_DIR})

set(SOURCE_FILES main.cpp)

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SOURCE_FILES})
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} SDL2main SDL2)