In my summer semester of 2025 I decided to take a C programming class to sharpen my coding skills. But, as my assignments became more complex, they required multiple header and implementation files. This is where tools known as build systems come into handy, such as GNU Make. The problem with C build systems is that there are arguably too many of them, and on top of this, there are what are known as meta build systems. Meta build systems are tools that create build scripts for other build systems.
After reviewing the laundry list of compiler tools, I settled on CMake. CMake is a meta build system that can generates makefiles tailored for a specific platform and compiler, allowing you to easily cross-compile for different target architectures.
With all this out of the way lets set up a simple C project with CMake!
CMake has many features that I will not be covering here so you many want to refer to the CMake documentation
Installation
I would recommend following the official CMake installation guide as this may become out of date! On top of this, I have not tested my CMakeLists.txt file on Windows and recommend using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) unless you are devloping applications specificly for Windows.
Click for Linux instructions
If you are on a unix/linx system you can install CMake using your systems package manager.
For Example:
sudo apt install cmake
Once installed you can check with
cmake --version
Click for Winows instructions
Windows now has a package manager similar to what is found on UNIX systems. Windows Package Manager (winget) can be used to install CMake just like apt with the lovely UAC prompt.
In a PowerShell terminal run:
winget install cmake
NOTE: CMake is not a compiler and if you are on Windows you will need to install a C/C++ compiler such as MSVC
Project Structure
I am not sure if there is a formal name for this type of project structure, but this is what I have seen used out in the wild most often for C and C++ projects and what I prefer to use.
Project Name
├── README
├── LICENCE
├── CMakeLists.txt // simple CMakeLists.txt
├── build // Where your build files go
├── include // header files
├── lib // external libraries (.so or .dll)
└── src // source code
└── main.c
Basic CMakeLists
Here is a basic simple CMakeLists.txt to get a C or C++ project started. In your projects root directory copy this into your CMakeLists.txt file.
Make sure to replace anything you see in <> such as <Name> without the brackets.
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.24)
set(PROJECT_NAME <Name>)
project(${PROJECT_NAME})
set(CMAKE_C_STANDARD 23)
set(CMAKE_C_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
# list of c files to compile
set(SOURCES
# Source files go here
# src/main.c
<add files here>
)
# gcc compile options (Optional)
# add_compile_options(-Wall -Wextra -save-temps)
add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SOURCES})
target_include_directories(${PROJECT_NAME}
PRIVATE
${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/include
)
Build and Run
Once you have copied and edited your CMakeLists.txt you need to run cmake to generate the lower level build scripts for your project.
In your build directory run:
cmake ..
Running this command will generate a Makefile in your project’s build directory.
Once your build scripts are generated run make in the build directory to compile your project.
make
Doing so will create a compiled binary in your build directory that you run using ./<project-name>