Generate flatbuffers windows shared lib with CMake

Question

I am trying to generate Windows shared lib (dll) of Google flatbuffers (https://github.com/google/flatbuffers) using CMake. I have used the following cmake command, but it always generates a static library (*.lib) when I build it.

cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON

I also tried the options CMAKE_IMPORT_LIBRARY_SUFFIX and CMAKE_WINDOWS_EXPORT_ALL_SYMBOLS with CMake. Unfortunately it always generates a *.lib

What do I need to do to generate *.dll?

Answer 1

In the Flatbuffers CMake code, there is a CMake option FLATBUFFERS_BUILD_SHAREDLIB here:

option(FLATBUFFERS_BUILD_SHAREDLIB
       "Enable the build of the flatbuffers shared library"
       OFF)

You can set this option when you call CMake to enable the shared library build:

cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -DFLATBUFFERS_BUILD_SHAREDLIB=ON

---

For future reference, you can list all of the cached CMake variables using:

cmake -LH

This will show all of the defined FLATBUFFERS_* options you can configure for the build.