[c++] OS specific instructions in CMAKE: How to?

I am a beginner to CMAKE. Below is a simple cmake file which works well in mingw environment windows. The problem is clearly with target_link_libraries() function of CMAKE where I am linking libwsock32.a. In windows this works and I get the results.

However, as expected, in Linux, the /usr/bin/ld will look for -lwsock32 which is NOT there on the Linux OS.

My Problem is: How do I instruct CMAKE to avoid linking wsock32 library in Linux OS???

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

My Simple CMake file:

 PROJECT(biourl)
 set (${PROJECT_NAME}_headers ./BioSocketAddress.h  ./BioSocketBase.h ./BioSocketBuffer.h ./BioSocketCommon.h  ./BioSocketListener.h  ./BioSocketPrivate.h  ./BioSocketStream.h ./BioUrl.h BioDatabase.h )

set (${PROJECT_NAME}_sources BioSocketAddress.C  BioSocketBase.C  BioSocketCommon.C BioSocketStream.C  BioUrl.C BioDatabase.C )

add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} STATIC ${${PROJECT_NAME}_headers} ${${PROJECT_NAME}_sources} )

# linkers
#find_library(ws NAMES wsock32 PATHS ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR} NO_SYSTEM_ENVIRONMENT_PATH NO_DEFAULT_PATH)

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} bioutils wsock32)

install (TARGETS ${PROJECT_NAME}
       RUNTIME DESTINATION bin
       LIBRARY DESTINATION lib
       ARCHIVE DESTINATION lib/archive )

Given this is such a common issue, geronto-posting:

    if(UNIX AND NOT APPLE)
        set(LINUX TRUE)
    endif()

    # if(NOT LINUX) should work, too, if you need that
    if(LINUX) 
        message(STATUS ">>> Linux")
        # linux stuff here
    else()
        message(STATUS ">>> Not Linux")
        # stuff that should happen not on Linux 
    endif()

CMake boolean logic docs

CMake platform names, etc.

Use some preprocessor macro to check if it's in windows or linux. For example

#ifdef WIN32
LIB= 
#elif __GNUC__
LIB=wsock32
#endif

include -l$(LIB) in you build command.

You can also specify some command line argument to differentiate both.

Try that:

if(WIN32)
    set(ADDITIONAL_LIBRARIES wsock32)
else()
    set(ADDITIONAL_LIBRARIES "")
endif()

target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} bioutils ${ADDITIONAL_LIBRARIES})

You can find other useful variables here.

Generator expressions are also possible:

target_link_libraries(
    target_name
    PUBLIC
        libA
        $<$<PLATFORM_ID:Windows>:wsock32>
    PRIVATE
        $<$<PLATFORM_ID:Linux>:libB>
        libC
)

This will link libA, wsock32 & libC on Windows and link libA, libB & libC on Linux

CMake Generator Expressions

In General

You can detect and specify variables for several operating systems like that:

Detect Microsoft Windows

if(WIN32)
    # for Windows operating system in general
endif()

Or:

if(MSVC OR MSYS OR MINGW)
    # for detecting Windows compilers
endif()

Detect Apple MacOS

if(APPLE)
    # for MacOS X or iOS, watchOS, tvOS (since 3.10.3)
endif()

Detect Unix and Linux

if(UNIX AND NOT APPLE)
    # for Linux, BSD, Solaris, Minix
endif()

Your specific linker issue

To solve your issue with the Windows-specific wsock32 library, just remove it from other systems, like that:

if(WIN32)
    target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} bioutils wsock32)
else
    target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} bioutils)
endif()

I want to leave this here because I struggled with this when compiling for Android in Windows with the Android SDK.

CMake distinguishes between TARGET and HOST platform.

My TARGET was Android so the variables like CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME had the value "Android" and the variable WIN32 from the other answer here was not defined. But I wanted to know if my HOST system was Windows because I needed to do a few things differently when compiling on either Windows or Linux or IOs. To do that I used CMAKE_HOST_SYSTEM_NAME which I found is barely known or mentioned anywhere because for most people TARGEt and HOST are the same or they don't care.

Hope this helps someone somewhere...

You have some special words from CMAKE, take a look:

if(${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME} STREQUAL "Linux")
    // do something for Linux
else
    // do something for other OS