project

Set a name, version, and enable languages for the entire project.

project(<PROJECT-NAME> [LANGUAGES] [<language-name>...])
project(<PROJECT-NAME>
        [VERSION <major>[.<minor>[.<patch>[.<tweak>]]]]
        [DESCRIPTION <project-description-string>]
        [LANGUAGES <language-name>...])

Sets the name of the project and stores the name in the PROJECT_NAME variable. Additionally this sets variables

• PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR, <PROJECT-NAME>_SOURCE_DIR

• PROJECT_BINARY_DIR, <PROJECT-NAME>_BINARY_DIR

If VERSION is specified, given components must be non-negative integers. If VERSION is not specified, the default version is the empty string. The VERSION option may not be used unless policy CMP0048 is set to NEW.

The project() command stores the version number and its components in variables

• PROJECT_VERSION, <PROJECT-NAME>_VERSION

• PROJECT_VERSION_MAJOR, <PROJECT-NAME>_VERSION_MAJOR

• PROJECT_VERSION_MINOR, <PROJECT-NAME>_VERSION_MINOR

• PROJECT_VERSION_PATCH, <PROJECT-NAME>_VERSION_PATCH

• PROJECT_VERSION_TWEAK, <PROJECT-NAME>_VERSION_TWEAK

Variables corresponding to unspecified versions are set to the empty string (if policy CMP0048 is set to NEW).

If optional DESCRIPTION is given, then additional PROJECT_DESCRIPTION variable will be set to its argument. The argument must be a string with short description of the project (only a few words).

Optionally you can specify which languages your project supports. Example languages include C, CXX (i.e. C++), CUDA, Fortran, and ASM. By default C and CXX are enabled if no language options are given. Specify language NONE, or use the LANGUAGES keyword and list no languages, to skip enabling any languages.

If enabling ASM, list it last so that CMake can check whether compilers for other languages like C work for assembly too.

If a variable exists called CMAKE_PROJECT_<PROJECT-NAME>_INCLUDE, the file pointed to by that variable will be included as the last step of the project command.

The top-level CMakeLists.txt file for a project must contain a literal, direct call to the project() command; loading one through the include() command is not sufficient. If no such call exists CMake will implicitly add one to the top that enables the default languages (C and CXX).

Note

Call the cmake_minimum_required() command at the beginning of the top-level CMakeLists.txt file even before calling the project() command. It is important to establish version and policy settings before invoking other commands whose behavior they may affect. See also policy CMP0000.