No cmake install target

[jlack1987]

Description

I would like to install the SDK to the system(e.g. /usr/local) so I can build/install it in my docker once and not build it every time, but currently the cmake doesn't have an install target.

Expected Behavior

I would expect that I would be able to make install after running cmake and it would install headers and libraries to the designated install location.

[bryfox]

You're talking about building the libraries from source using https://github.com/foxglove/foxglove-sdk/blob/main/cpp/CMakeLists.txt? The way we recommend installing right now is to use the versioned releases (libraries and C++ source). This example has a CMakeLists that might be of use. Will that work for you? (For example, download/extract the sources in a separate step — cache that layer — and then link & include per the example?)

[jlack1987]

Yeah that's what i'm referring to, but the fetch content method is not optimal as we'd like to build our code from scratch in an environment that doesn't have internet so we'll need to install it to the system in a docker container and depend on it from there. I'll see if I can solve it via cmake and PR it back to you all if that would be acceptable

[bryfox]

I don't think this will be an install path we recommend, but it's also not something we'd necessarily be against and would be happy to review a PR. Out of curiosity, why is starting from the SDK source preferable to the versioned artifacts? Presumably you could supply either one to the build system out-of-band and then build your project from there.

[jlack1987]

Yeah i'm not opposed to those artifacts, but they don't provide cmake tools for nicely finding the headers/libraries. Going to try and make some cmake changes that won't break your current recommendation, but will also make it an installable package so users can use it with find_package

[jlack1987]

I have been unable to get this to work unfortunately. I tried to make a vendor package but haven't been able to get it to work and may not be able to work on it again for awhile. I do think this is necessary though because requiring users to use FetchContent as the documentation suggests means you must have an active internet connection to build your code if it depends on this sdk and that is often not possible

[valgur]

A couple of additional install() commands would be very helpful indeed. An exported CMake config would also help make the SDK easier to use by defining a consistent interface to the library.
I had to do some pretty heavy patching for a foxglove-sdk-cpp Conan package to work around this: valgur/conan-center-index@86de558

Edit: using a custom minimal CMakeLists.txt turned out to be a better approach currently, actually: https://github.com/valgur/conan-center-index/blob/b760fce03fdc07f18839a5346ac5735a623db133/recipes/foxglove-sdk-cpp/all/CMakeLists.txt