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cmakeglew

CMake can't find GLEW


I've read this [1], but in my case CMake says it can't find glew.

I'm on Windows and there is a FindGLEW.cmake file in my CMake modules folder, presumably put there when I installed CMake-3.6. I found GLEW on sourceforge and downloaded the zip file for Windows. I unzipped and installed in C:\Program Files\glew. When I've created my own libraries and used CMake to build and install them, this is the default location they are installed to so I am pretty confident I'm OK here.

The snippet from my CMakeLists.txt is:

find_package(GLEW REQUIRED)
include_directories(${GLEW_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_libraries(${GLEW_LIBRARIES})

The actual error message from CMake is:

CMake Error at C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.6/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:148 (message):
  Could NOT find GLEW (missing: GLEW_INCLUDE_DIR GLEW_LIBRARY)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.6/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:388 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.6/Modules/FindGLEW.cmake:44 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
  source/CMakeLists.txt:5 (find_package)

Is it possible the FindGLEW.cmake is broken? I've looked at a couple of other FindXXXXX.cmake files and they are like snowflakes, each one pretty unique. So it's hard for me to say with any certainty that it's following convention.

[1] Linking GLEW with CMake


Solution

  • Looking in the sources, the package is looking for GLEW in relative paths. These relative paths are searched using different prefixes, including the content of the variable CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:

    • <prefix>/include for find_path which is used to find include directories.
    • <prefix>/lib for find_library which is used to find libraries.

    Assuming C:/Program Files/glew/include and C:/Program Files/glew/lib exist, add C:/Program Files/glew to your CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH variable. Something like:

    list(APPEND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH "C:/Program Files/glew")
    find_package(GLEW REQUIRED)
    

    Note that the following lines:

    include_directories(${GLEW_INCLUDE_DIRS})
    link_libraries(${GLEW_LIBRARIES})
    

    may be dropped using imported target Glew::Glew:

    add_executable(foo ...)
    target_link_libraries(foo Glew::Glew)