There has been quite some “find OpenCL” code for CMake around. If you haven’t heard of CMake, it’s the most useful cross-platform tool to make cross-platform software.

Put this into CMakeLists.txt, changing the names for the executable.

#Minimal OpenCL CMakeLists.txt by StreamHPC

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 3.1)

project(GreatProject)

# Handle OpenCL
find_package(OpenCL REQUIRED)
include_directories(${OpenCL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_directories(${OpenCL_LIBRARY})

add_executable (main main.cpp)
target_include_directories (main PUBLIC ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR})
target_link_libraries (main ${OpenCL_LIBRARY})

Then do the usual:

• make a build-directory
• cd build
• cmake .. (specifying the right Generator)

Adding your own CMake snippets and you’re one happy dev!

Cmake 3.7

CMake 3.7 makes it even easier! You can do the following:

find_package(OpenCL REQUIRED)
add_executable(test_tgt main.c)
target_link_libraries(test_tgt OpenCL::OpenCL)

This automatically sets up the include paths and target library to link against. No need to use the ${OpenCL_INCLUDE_DIRS} and ${OpenCL_LIBRARIES} any more.

(Thanks Matthäus G. Chajdas for improving this!)

Getting CMake 3.1 or higher

• Ubuntu/Debian: Get the PPA.
• Other Linux: Get the latest tar.gz and compile.
• Windows/OSX: Download the latest exe/dmg from the CMake homepage.

If you have more tips to share, put them in the comments.