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cmakesdl-2

What happened to FindSDL2 in CMake?

I use SDL2 in my game. I always was using custom FindSDL2.cmake, because there is no one in standard CMake set. However, some time ago posts about FindSDL2 did appeared. Example: Reddit post.

If your cmake is new enough and it has FindSDL2.cmake file, you can do this:

find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED)

But when I download latest CMake (3.13.2), it doesn't include FindSDL2.cmake.

What happened to it?

Solution

  • FindSDL2 has never appeared in CMake. Following the reject reason in pull request #149, SDL2 ships with a SDL2Config.cmake, which provides a cmake package. The documentation for find_package states that find_package(SDL2) will behave as follows:

    • Look for FindSDL2.cmake, use that if it exists. (module mode)
    • Otherwise, use the information in SDL2Config.cmake or sdl2-config.cmake. (config mode)

    In short, make sure that your SDL2 package has installed the SDL2Config.cmake file and that is on your CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH. The documentation lists the exact paths and prefixes it looks under.

    Once you managed to find_package(SDL2), the following targets are available for use in target_link_libraries:

    SDL2::SDL2main
SDL2::SDL2
SDL2::SDL2-static