visual studio - Generate C# project using CMake

Question

I'm trying to generate a C# project within an existing C++ CMake code base on Windows. After some research, I could find only two projects that built their own CSharp compilers for CMake: gdcm and kde.

I tried both of them. Unfortunately, the first one failed to generate a C# project. Instead it created a VS C++ project with cs files in it, and because of C++ flags set for linker, the build always failed with errors. After experimenting with the sample project they provided, I wonder whether this could be due to a limitation of the "Visual Studio 8 2005" code generator?

The second project was primarily aimed at Mono, so I wasn't successful with it either.

Has anyone had a positive experience with building C# projects using one of those CMake modules or something else?

Answer 1

As of CMake 3.8.2, CSharp project generation is officially supported by CMake.

To build the default Visual Studio 2017 generated C#/WPF project using CMake, create a CMakeList.txt file as follows.

• Project Declaration

  project(Example VERSION 0.1.0 LANGUAGES CSharp)
  

• Include CMake CSharpUtilities if you are planning on using WPF or other designer properties.

  include(CSharpUtilities)
  

• Add all cs, xaml, settings, properties

  add_executable(Example
      App.config
      App.xaml
      App.xaml.cs
      MainWindow.xaml
      MainWindow.xaml.cs
  
      Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs
      Properties/Resources.Designer.cs
      Properties/Resources.resx
      Properties/Settings.Designer.cs
      Properties/Settings.settings)
  

• Link designer files, xaml files, and other properties files with their corresponding cs files

  csharp_set_designer_cs_properties(
      Properties/AssemblyInfo.cs
      Properties/Resources.Designer.cs
      Properties/Resources.resx
      Properties/Settings.Designer.cs
      Properties/Settings.settings)
  
  csharp_set_xaml_cs_properties(
      App.xaml
      App.xaml.cs
      MainWindow.xaml
      MainWindow.xaml.cs)
  

• Set app App.xaml properties file as program entry point (if project is a WPF project)

  set_property(SOURCE App.xaml PROPERTY VS_XAML_TYPE "ApplicationDefinition")
  

• Set other csproj file flags

  set_property(TARGET Example PROPERTY VS_DOTNET_TARGET_FRAMEWORK_VERSION "v4.6.1")
  set_property(TARGET Example PROPERTY WIN32_EXECUTABLE TRUE)
  ...
  

• Add libraries

  set_property(TARGET Example PROPERTY VS_DOTNET_REFERENCES
      "Microsoft.CSharp"
      "PresentationCore"
      "PresentationFramework"
      "System"
      "System.Core"
      "System.Data"
      "System.Data.DataSetExtensions"
      "System.Net.Http"
      "System.Xaml"
      "System.Xml"
      "System.Xml.Linq"
      "WindowsBase")
  

For a working WPF example, see https://github.com/bemehiser/cmake_csharp_example

For a WinForms example, see this answer.