Using pre-compiled headers with CMake

Question

I have seen a few (old) posts on the 'net about hacking together some support for pre-compiled headers in CMake. They all seem a bit all-over the place and everyone has their own way of doing it. What is the best way of doing it currently?

Answer 1

Im using the following macro to generate and use precompiled headers:

MACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER PrecompiledHeader PrecompiledSource SourcesVar)
  IF(MSVC)
    GET_FILENAME_COMPONENT(PrecompiledBasename ${PrecompiledHeader} NAME_WE)
    SET(PrecompiledBinary "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${PrecompiledBasename}.pch")
    SET(Sources ${${SourcesVar}})

    SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${PrecompiledSource}
                                PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Yc\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                           OBJECT_OUTPUTS "${PrecompiledBinary}")
    SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${Sources}
                                PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Yu\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /FI\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                           OBJECT_DEPENDS "${PrecompiledBinary}")  
    # Add precompiled header to SourcesVar
    LIST(APPEND ${SourcesVar} ${PrecompiledSource})
  ENDIF(MSVC)
ENDMACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER)

Lets say you have a variable ${MySources} with all your sourcefiles, the code you would want to use would be simply be

ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER("precompiled.h" "precompiled.cpp" MySources)
ADD_LIBRARY(MyLibrary ${MySources})

The code would still function just fine on non-MSVC platforms too. Pretty neat :)

Answer 2

if you don't wanna reinvent the wheel, just use either Cotire as the top answer suggests or a simpler one - cmake-precompiled-header here. To use it just include the module and call:

include( cmake-precompiled-header/PrecompiledHeader.cmake )
add_precompiled_header( targetName StdAfx.h FORCEINCLUDE SOURCE_CXX StdAfx.cpp )

Answer 3

The cleanest way is to add the precompiled option as a global option. In the vcxproj file this will show up as <PrecompiledHeader>Use</PrecompiledHeader> and not do this for every individual file.

Then you need to add the Create option to the StdAfx.cpp. The following is how I use it:

MACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER SourcesVar)
    SET(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} /YuStdAfx.h")
    set_source_files_properties(StdAfx.cpp
        PROPERTIES
        COMPILE_FLAGS "/YcStdAfx.h"
        )
    list(APPEND ${${SourcesVar}} StdAfx.cpp)
ENDMACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER)

file(GLOB_RECURSE MYDLL_SRC
    "*.h"
    "*.cpp"
    "*.rc")

ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER(MYDLL_SRC)
add_library(MyDll SHARED ${MYDLL_SRC})

This is tested and works for MSVC 2010 and will create a MyDll.pch file, I am not bothered what file name is used so I didn't make any effort to specify it.

Answer 4

As the precompiled header option doesnt work for rc files, i needed to adjust the macro supplied by jari.

#######################################################################
# Makro for precompiled header
#######################################################################
MACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER PrecompiledHeader PrecompiledSource SourcesVar)
  IF(MSVC)
    GET_FILENAME_COMPONENT(PrecompiledBasename ${PrecompiledHeader} NAME_WE)
    SET(PrecompiledBinary "$(IntDir)/${PrecompiledBasename}.pch")
    SET(Sources ${${SourcesVar}})

    # generate the precompiled header
    SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${PrecompiledSource}
                                PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Zm500 /Yc\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                            OBJECT_OUTPUTS "${PrecompiledBinary}")

    # set the usage of this header only to the other files than rc
    FOREACH(fname ${Sources})
        IF ( NOT ${fname} MATCHES ".*rc$" )
            SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${fname}
                                        PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Zm500 /Yu\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /FI\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                                    OBJECT_DEPENDS "${PrecompiledBinary}")
        ENDIF( NOT ${fname} MATCHES ".*rc$" )
    ENDFOREACH(fname)

    # Add precompiled header to SourcesVar
    LIST(APPEND ${SourcesVar} ${PrecompiledSource})
  ENDIF(MSVC)
ENDMACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER)

Edit: The usage of this precompiled headers reduced the Overall build time of my main Project from 4min 30s down to 1min 40s. This is for me a really good thing. In the precompile header are only headers like boost/stl/Windows/mfc.

Answer 5

I ended up using an adapted version of larsm macro. Using $(IntDir) for pch path keeps precompiled headers for debug and release builds separate.

MACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER PrecompiledHeader PrecompiledSource SourcesVar)
  IF(MSVC)
    GET_FILENAME_COMPONENT(PrecompiledBasename ${PrecompiledHeader} NAME_WE)
    SET(PrecompiledBinary "$(IntDir)/${PrecompiledBasename}.pch")
    SET(Sources ${${SourcesVar}})

    SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${PrecompiledSource}
                                PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Yc\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                           OBJECT_OUTPUTS "${PrecompiledBinary}")
    SET_SOURCE_FILES_PROPERTIES(${Sources}
                                PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "/Yu\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /FI\"${PrecompiledHeader}\" /Fp\"${PrecompiledBinary}\""
                                           OBJECT_DEPENDS "${PrecompiledBinary}")  
    # Add precompiled header to SourcesVar
    LIST(APPEND ${SourcesVar} ${PrecompiledSource})
  ENDIF(MSVC)
ENDMACRO(ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER)

ADD_MSVC_PRECOMPILED_HEADER("stdafx.h" "stdafx.cpp" MY_SRCS)
ADD_EXECUTABLE(MyApp ${MY_SRCS})

Answer 6

An example of usage precompiled header with cmake and Visual Studio 2015

"stdafx.h", "stdafx.cpp" - precompiled header name.

Put the following below in the root cmake file.

if (MSVC)
    # For precompiled header.
    # Set 
    # "Precompiled Header" to "Use (/Yu)"
    # "Precompiled Header File" to "stdafx.h"
    set (CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} /Yustdafx.h /FIstdafx.h")
endif()

---

Put the following below in the project cmake file.

"src" - a folder with source files.

set_source_files_properties(src/stdafx.cpp
    PROPERTIES
    COMPILE_FLAGS "/Ycstdafx.h"
)