[SOLVED] How can I create a standalone Windows C++ executable using CMake?

Issue

I have a program that depends on

#include <fstream>
#include <vector>
#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>

Its CMakeLists is the following

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5)

project(CirclesDetectionProject VERSION 0.1)

set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
set(CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release CACHE STRING "Build type" FORCE)

# OpenCV
find_package(OpenCV REQUIRED PATHS "C:/opencv/build/x64/mingw64/")
include_directories(${OpenCV_INCLUDE_DIRS})

set(PROJECT_SOURCES
    main.cpp
)

add_executable(CirclesDetection ${PROJECT_SOURCES})
target_link_libraries(CirclesDetection ${OpenCV_LIBS})

I'm using VScode on windows 10 and the code compiling and running correctly using mingw32-make.

My question is how can I generate an executable that can run on other windows machines that don't necessarily have the dependencies installed?

Solution

I used CFE explorer which tells you all ddls that the exe need, which is very useful. in my case, it showed me that I have those dependencies:

libwinpthread-1.dll
libopencv_core480.dll
libopencv_imgcodecs480.dll
liboopencv_imgproc480.dll
kernel32.dll
msvcrt.dll

For libwinpthread-1.dll I had to add this to my CMakeLists to ensure static linking:

set(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS "${CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS} -static -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++")

Then for OpenCV, I did recompile it from source in static mode and recompile my code using the static version of OpenCV. Make sure it is using the static one:

set(OpenCV_DIR "C:/opencv-4.7.0-static/build/x64/mingw64/")
find_package(OpenCV REQUIRED)

Finally, for kernel32.dll and msvcrt.dll, they are standard windows system libraries and they are present on every Windows machine, so you don't have to worry about them.

Answered By - Ja_cpp

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (WPSolving Admin)