Ymir

Ymir is a lightweight and flexible C++ project generator for both Windows and Linux.

Ymir is not a C++ build system. It is not a replacement for CMake or any other build system. In fact, Ymir uses CMake under the hood.

Ymir is only a useful tool to generate all the necessary files and directories (specified by you) in order to start developing a C++ project faster.

Ymir will: - Create a main directory for the project. - Generate a top-level CMakeLists.txt file with all the required options set. The file is commented and quite robust although somewhat simple. - Create the main directories where all your source files will live as well as a directory for all your third-party libraries. - Generate a default main.cpp file for convenience - Generate a .gitignore and a .gitattributes if Git is enabled.

Besides that, Ymir can set a few configurations for the initial state of your project. Configurations such as the C++ standard, any initial project definitions, compiler flags, and so on.

Build Instructions

Like most C++ projects, Ymir uses CMake as its build system. The following commands will compile Ymir and produce a ymir executable.

mkdir build && cd build 
cmake .. 
make

Ymir does not have any dependencies at all. It only uses C++17 features and that's it. The compilation process should be quite simple and fast.

Afterwards, you can execute the ymir command from the build directory or install it system-wide like so:

sudo make install

That command will only work for Linux, however. For Windows, you can place Ymir anywhere but you must add it to your environment variables in order to use it from anywhere.

Usage

Finally, now you can use Ymir in all its glory. You should pass the --help flag to Ymir to get a better idea of what can be done.

ymir --help

Will produce:

### ### Ymir: A C++ project generator ### ###

[Usage]: ymir [options] --new <project_name>
        [--new, -n]          = The name of the new project
        [--standard, -std]   = Define the standard of the language (by default, this is 20)
        [--type, -t]         = Can be either CONSOLE_APP, GUI_APP, or LIBRARY
        [--definitions, -d]  = List all of the project's definitions inside quotes
        [--flags, -f]        = List all of the project's compiler flags inside quotes
        [--src-dir, -sd]     = Define the name of the source directory (by default, this is 'src')
        [--include-dir, -id] = Define the name of the include directory (by default, this is 'src')
        [--deps-dir, -dd]    = Define the name of the dependencies directory (by default, this is 'libs')
        [--has-git, -g]      = Create both a .gitignore and a .gitattributes file if set (by default, this is unset)
        [--help, -h]         = Show this help screen

### ### Ymir: A C++ project generator ### ###

The most important flag is the --new flag since it will start the process of creating a C++ project with the given name.

ymir --new "NewCPPProject"

With only this command, you'll have a new project directory with the name NewCPPProject with the following contents:

- NewCPPProject/
    - libs/ 
    - src/
        main.cpp
    - CMakeLists.txt

Although it is somewhat minimal, it is just enough to get started. However, if you wish to change or add a few configurations, you can use the various flags Ymir offers.

For example, the --standard flag or its alias -std will set the C++ language standard.

ymir -std 20 --new "NewCPPProject"

You can also change the type of the C++ project. A library is different from a console application, and those are different still from a GUI application. Using the --type (or -t) flag will give you the flexibility of choosing a specific project type.

ymir -std 20 -t CONSOLE_APP --new "NewConsoleApp"

The --type flag accepts either CONSOLE_APP, GUI_APP, or LIBRARY. The difference between these types under the hood is the way the CMakeLists.txt and the default main.cpp files will be configured. For example, for the CONSOLE_APP project type, the CMake file will have the usual:

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${PROJECT_SOURCES})

However, for a LIBRARY project, the following will be used:

# 'SHARED' is used by default but it can be changed
add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} SHARED ${PROJECT_SOURCES} ${PROJECT_HEADERS})

The GUI_APP project does not differ too much from a regular CONSOLE_APP. However, on both Windows and MacOS, if you wish to disable the console completely (which is quite likely in a GUI application), the add_executable CMake command needs to include either the WIN32 or the MACOSX_BUNDLE flags respectfully. Besides that, GUI applications on Windows have a unique entry point.

#include <windows.h>

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE inst, HINSTANCE prev_inst, LPSTR cmd_line, int cmd_show) {
  return 0;
}

Moving on, we can also add some configurations to the C++ project by using both the --definitions (or -d) and the --flags (or -f) flags.

ymir -std 20 -t GUI_APP -d "GLFW_INCLUDE_NONE" -f "-lm -w" --new "NewGameProject"

Just make sure to include multiple flags or definitions in the same string on the command line.

By default, Ymir keeps both the translation units (.cpp or .c) and the header files in the same directory--src. But that can easily be changed.

ymir -std 20 -t LIBRARY --src-dir "src" --include-dir "include/library_name" -n "NewLibrary"

Ymir also generates a directory for third-party libraries. And, like the source and include directories, it can also be changed to your liking.

ymir -std 20 -t LIBRARY --deps-dir "thirdparty" -n "NewLibrary"

Ymir can also generate two Git files if the --has-git (or the alias -g) flag is set. Mainly, Ymir will generate a .gitignore and a .gitattributes file in the main directory.

ymir -std 20 -t LIBRARY --src-dir "src" --include-dir "include/library_name" --deps-dir "thirdparty" -n "NewLibrary" -g

With the previous command, the newly generated project directory should look something like this:

- NewLibrary/ 
    - include/ 
    - src/
        main.cpp
    - thirdparty/ 
    - CMakeLists.txt
    - .gitignore
    - .gitattributes

If the cmake .. command is run on the main directory, a new binary will be produced with no issues (hopefully).