The distribution comes with a cmake file that should allow you to build project/make files for any platform. For details on cmake, see https://www.cmake.org. In brief, depending on your platform, use one of e.g.:
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release cmake -G "Visual Studio 10" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release cmake -G "Xcode" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
Then, build as normal for your platform. This should result in a flatc executable, essential for the next steps. Note that to use clang instead of gcc, you may need to set up your environment variables, e.g. CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles".
Optionally, run the flattests executable from the root flatbuffers/ directory to ensure everything is working correctly on your system. If this fails, please contact us!
Building should also produce two sample executables, flatsamplebinary and flatsampletext, see the corresponding .cpp files in the flatbuffers/samples directory.
Note that you MUST be in the root of the FlatBuffers distribution when you run 'flattests' or flatsampletext, or it will fail to load its files.
There is a flatbuffers/android directory that contains all you need to build the test executable on android (use the included build_apk.sh script, or use ndk_build / adb etc. as usual). Upon running, it will output to the log if tests succeeded or not.
You may also run an android sample from inside the flatbuffers/samples, by running the android_sample.sh script. Optionally, you may go to the flatbuffers/samples/android folder and build the sample with the build_apk.sh script or ndk_build / adb etc.
For C++, there is usually no runtime to compile, as the code consists of a single header, include/flatbuffers/flatbuffers.h. You should add the include folder to your include paths. If you wish to be able to load schemas and/or parse text into binary buffers at runtime, you additionally need the other headers in include/flatbuffers. You must also compile/link src/idl_parser.cpp (and src/idl_gen_text.cpp if you also want to be able convert binary to text).
To see how to include FlatBuffers in any of our supported languages, please view the [Tutorial](@ref flatbuffers_guide_tutorial) and select your appropriate language using the radio buttons.
If you want to use FlatBuffers in a project which already uses CMake, then a more robust and flexible approach is to build FlatBuffers as part of that project directly. This is done by making the FlatBuffers source code available to the main build and adding it using CMake's add_subdirectory() command. This has the significant advantage that the same compiler and linker settings are used between FlatBuffers and the rest of your project, so issues associated with using incompatible libraries (eg debug/release), etc. are avoided. This is particularly useful on Windows.
Suppose you put FlatBuffers source code in directory ${FLATBUFFERS_SRC_DIR}. To build it as part of your project, add following code to your CMakeLists.txt file:
# Add FlatBuffers directly to our build. This defines the `flatbuffers` target. add_subdirectory(${FLATBUFFERS_SRC_DIR} ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/flatbuffers-build EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL) # Now simply link against flatbuffers as needed to your already declared target. # The flatbuffers target carry header search path automatically if CMake > 2.8.11. target_link_libraries(own_project_target PRIVATE flatbuffers)
When build your project the flatbuffers library will be compiled and linked to a target as part of your project.
To override [the depth limit of recursion](@ref flatbuffers_guide_use_cpp), add this directive:
set(FLATBUFFERS_MAX_PARSING_DEPTH 16)
to CMakeLists.txt file before add_subdirectory(${FLATBUFFERS_SRC_DIR}) line.
For applications on Google Play that integrate this library, usage is tracked. This tracking is done automatically using the embedded version string (flatbuffer_version_string), and helps us continue to optimize it. Aside from consuming a few extra bytes in your application binary, it shouldn't affect your application at all. We use this information to let us know if FlatBuffers is useful and if we should continue to invest in it. Since this is open source, you are free to remove the version string but we would appreciate if you would leave it in.