C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
moderncppdevops.com
C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#2I have made my own tool to solve this problem:
https://github.com/franko/lhelper
It is currently used by nobody except me but it serves me well.
Its strong points are:
- it works on macOS, Linux and Windows - it is possible to choose the options you want to enable for each package - compiles packages using your own compiler toolchain - create static libraries by default but you can choose a shared library.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#3This is a great overview, very comprehensive.
I personally have a system based on Guix, which is like Nix.
One important note is that doing LTO with such a setup is tricky (and I haven’t attempted it yet).
It is possible to transform existing packages to use your preferred C++ toolchain using —-with-c-toolchain, which avoids the ABI incompatibility trap, but I haven’t figured out how to create LTO-enabled static libs from system packages yet.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#4> Spack cons. Not as well-suited for general-purpose development
While I would not use Spack (or any package manager) to drive the usual hack-build-test development loop, Spack does provide at least two mechanisms to support that kind of general-purpose development activity: "environments" and "views".
Given the list of build systems includes SCons, I'd expect to see waf (waf.io) here.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#5Although you mention XRepo in the list of package managers, you don't mention XMake in the list of build systems.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#6Why is XMake not mentioned in the list of build systems whereas XRepo is mentioned in the list of package managers? (subjective: XMake is a great tool if you like Lua).
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#7> Requires rebuild all dependencies are every machine
Regarding vcpkg, this hasn't been true for a while.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#8vcpkg is well on its way to becoming the de facto standard, with support for just about every major platform out there.
But FetchContent / ExternalProject in CMake is super convenient and works really well if you just have a couple simple dependencies.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#9Conan does a very poor job of managing versions and accidental cycles in your dependency graph. I recall having issues that needed manual patching of conanfiles to bootstrap packages when no prebuilt version existed for the target and it contained itself as a transitive dependency.
Also if you use it, make sure not to rely on Conan center. Their outages can ruin your week.
Re: C++ Package Managers: The Ultimate Roundup
#10The new bzlmod mechanism from Bazel can be count as a kind of package manager.