How to include external library (boost) into CLion C++ project with CMake?

boost, c++, clion, cmake

Solution

After spending the whole afternoon on the issue, I solved it myself. It was a rather stupid mistake and all the hints in @Waxo's answer were really helpful.

The reason why it wasn't working for me that I wrote `#include <boost>` within my test.cpp-file, which apparently is just wrong. Instead, you need to refer directly to the header files that you actually want to include, so you should rather write e.g. `#include <boost/thread.hpp>`.

After all, a short sequence of statements should be enough to successfully (and platform-independently) include `boost` into a `CMake` project:

find_package(Boost 1.57.0 COMPONENTS system filesystem REQUIRED)
include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})
add_executable(BoostTest main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(BoostTest ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

These lines are doing the magic here. For reference, here is a complete CMakeLists.txt file that I used for debugging in a separate command line project:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.4)

project(BoostTest)

message(STATUS "start running cmake...")

find_package(Boost 1.57.0 COMPONENTS system filesystem REQUIRED)

if(Boost_FOUND)

    message(STATUS "Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS: ${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS}")
    message(STATUS "Boost_LIBRARIES: ${Boost_LIBRARIES}")
    message(STATUS "Boost_VERSION: ${Boost_VERSION}")

    include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})

endif()

add_executable(BoostTest main.cpp)

if(Boost_FOUND)

    target_link_libraries(BoostTest ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

endif()

Problem

I have the following setup for C++ development: - `OS X Yosemite` - `CLion 140.2310.6` (a cross-plattform C/C++-IDE by JetBrains using `CMake` as build system) - installed `boost` via `brew install boost` into `/usr/local/Cellar/boost/` Now, my goal is to setup a simple project and include the `boost` library. I defined just one test.cpp file that looks like this: ``` #include <iostream> #include <boost> using namespace std; int test() { cout << "Hello, World!" << endl; return 0; } ``` My CMakeLists.txt file looks like this: ``` cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.4) project(MyProject) set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11") include_directories("/usr/local/Cellar/boost/1.57.0/include/boost") set(SOURCE_FILES main.cpp ./test.cpp) add_executable(MyProject ${SOURCE_FILES}) ``` When I build the project, I get the following error: /Users/nburk/Documents/uni/master/master_thesis/MyProject/test.cpp:2:10: fatal error: 'boost' file not found make[3]: *** [CMakeFiles/MyProject.dir/test.cpp.o] Error 1 make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/MyProject.dir/all] Error 2 make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/MyProject.dir/rule] Error 2 make: *** [MyProject] Error 2 I played around with adjusting paths here and there and also using `add_library` and `target_link_libraries`, none of which made the project build successfully. Can someone point into the right direction how to make sure I can include `boost`s functionality into my CLion C++ project? Update: Thanks to @Waxo's answer I used the following code in my CMakeLists.txt file which: ``` set(Boost_INCLUDE_DIR /usr/local/Cellar/boost/1.57.0) set(Boost_LIBRARY_DIR /usr/local/Cellar/boost/1.57.0/lib) find_package(Boost COMPONENTS system filesystem REQUIRED) include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIR}) ``` I now got past the file not found-error, but instead I get the following: CMake Error at /Applications/CLion EAP.app/Contents/bin/cmake/share/cmake-3.1/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:685 (file): file STRINGS file "/usr/local/Cellar/boost/1.57.0/boost/version.hpp" cannot be read. Call Stack (most recent call first): CMakeLists.txt:11 (find_package) Any ideas what I am still missing? The referred line (685) in FindBoost.cmake is: `file(STRINGS "${Boost_INCLUDE_DIR}/boost/version.hpp" _boost_VERSION_HPP_CONTENTS REGEX "#define BOOST_(LIB_)?VERSION ")`

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