You can open this sample in an IDE that supports Gradle.

This guide demonstrates how to create a C++ application with Gradle using gradle init. You can follow the guide step-by-step to create a new project from scratch or download the complete sample project using the links above.

What you’ll build

You’ll generate a C++ application that follows Gradle’s conventions.

What you’ll need

Create a project folder

Gradle comes with a built-in task, called init, that initializes a new Gradle project in an empty folder. The init task uses the (also built-in) wrapper task to create a Gradle wrapper script, gradlew.

The first step is to create a folder for the new project and change directory into it.

$ mkdir demo
$ cd demo

Run the init task

From inside the new project directory, run the init task using the following command in a terminal: gradle init. When prompted, select the 1: application project type and 5: C++ as the implementation language. Next you can choose the DSL for writing buildscripts - 1 : Kotlin or 2: Groovy. For the other questions, press enter to use the default values.

The output will look like this:

$ gradle init

Select type of build to generate:
  1: Application
  2: Library
  3: Gradle plugin
  4: Basic (build structure only)
Enter selection (default: Application) [1..4] 1

Select implementation language:
  1: Java
  2: Kotlin
  3: Groovy
  4: Scala
  5: C++
  6: Swift
Enter selection (default: Java) [1..6] 5

Project name (default: demo):

Select build script DSL:
  1: Kotlin
  2: Groovy
Enter selection (default: Kotlin) [1..2]

Generate build using new APIs and behavior (some features may change in the next minor release)? (default: no) [yes, no]

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
1 actionable task: 1 executed

The init task generates the new project with the following structure:

├── gradle (1)
│   ├── libs.versions.toml (2)
│   └── wrapper
│       ├── gradle-wrapper.jar
│       └── gradle-wrapper.properties
├── gradlew (3)
├── gradlew.bat (3)
├── settings.gradle.kts (4)
└── app
    ├── build.gradle.kts (5)
    └── src
        ├── main
        │   └── cpp (6)
        │   │   └── app.cpp
        │   └── headers
        │       └── app.h
        └── test
            └── cpp (7)
                └── app_test.cpp
├── gradle (1)
│   ├── libs.versions.toml (2)
│   └── wrapper
│       ├── gradle-wrapper.jar
│       └── gradle-wrapper.properties
├── gradlew (3)
├── gradlew.bat (3)
├── settings.gradle (4)
└── app
    ├── build.gradle (5)
    └── src
        ├── main
        │   └── cpp (6)
        │   │   └── app.cpp
        │   └── headers
        │       └── app.h
        └── test
            └── cpp (7)
                └── app_test.cpp
1 Generated folder for wrapper files
2 Generated version catalog
3 Gradle wrapper start scripts
4 Settings file to define build name and subprojects
5 Build script of app project
6 Default C++ source folder
7 Default C++ test source folder

You now have the project setup to build a C++ application.

Review the project files

The settings.gradle(.kts) file has two interesting lines:

settings.gradle.kts
rootProject.name = "demo"
include("app")
settings.gradle
rootProject.name = 'demo'
include('app')

  • rootProject.name assigns a name to the build, which overrides the default behavior of naming the build after the directory it’s in. It’s recommended to set a fixed name as the folder might change if the project is shared - e.g. as root of a Git repository.

  • include("app") defines that the build consists of one subproject called app that contains the actual code and build logic. More subprojects can be added by additional include(…​) statements.

Our build contains one subproject called app that represents the C++ application we are building. It is configured in the app/build.gradle(.kts) file:

app/build.gradle.kts
plugins {
    `cpp-application` (1)
    `cpp-unit-test` (2)
}

application { (3)
    targetMachines.add(machines.linux.x86_64)
}
app/build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'cpp-application' (1)
    id 'cpp-unit-test' (2)
}

application { (3)
    targetMachines.add(machines.linux.x86_64)
}
1 Apply the cpp-application plugin to add support for building C++ executables
2 Apply the cpp-unit-test plugin to add support for building and running C++ test executables

The file src/main/cpp/app.cpp is shown here:

Generated src/main/cpp/app.cpp
/*
 * This source file was generated by the Gradle 'init' task
 */

#include <iostream>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "app.h"

std::string demo::Greeter::greeting() {
    return std::string("Hello, World!");
}

int main () {
    demo::Greeter greeter;
    std::cout << greeter.greeting() << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

The generated test, src/test/cpp/app.cpp is shown next:

Generated src/test/cpp/app_test.cpp
/*
 * This source file was generated by the Gradle 'init' task
 */

#include "app.h"
#include <cassert>

int main() {
    demo::Greeter greeter;
    assert(greeter.greeting().compare("Hello, World!") == 0);
    return 0;
}

The generated test class has a single C++ executable test. The test instantiates the Greeter class, invokes a method on it, and checks that it returns the expected value.

Build the application

$ ./gradlew build

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 0s
7 actionable tasks: 7 executed
The first time you run the wrapper script, gradlew, there may be a delay while that version of gradle is downloaded and stored locally in your ~/.gradle/wrapper/dists folder.

The build task compiles the C++ sources, links the object files, and runs the tests. It also packages the main and test applications for distribution on other systems. The installDebug and installTest tasks, which both run as part of build, copy the executable and generates a shell script for executing the application. The following shows the content of the build/install folder:

./app/build/install
├── main
│   └── debug
│       ├── app      (1)
│       └── lib
│           └── app  (2)
└── test
    ├── appTest      (1)
    └── lib
        └── appTest  (3)
1 The script for executing the application variant
2 The main executable binary (debug variant)
3 The test executable binary
When a build has dependencies, the dependent libraries are also copied into the installation folder. The shell scripts properly configure the library path so the package can be relocated.
Dependencies on other projects isn’t covered in this guide. To learn more about this subject, have a look at the transitive dependency sample for a demonstration.
Gradle integrates with several IDEs: Visual Studio, Xcode and Clion. To learn more, have a look at their respective linked documentation to configure those IDE integration in your project.

Run the application

Look inside the build folder and you will notice the appearance of an exe folder. By convention, Gradle will place all applications in subfolders named according to the component name. In this case, you will find your assembled executable in build/exe/main/debug and it will be called app (or app.exe under Windows).

Now run your newly built executable.

$ ./app/build/exe/main/debug/app
Hello, World!

Publish a Build Scan

The best way to learn more about what your build is doing behind the scenes, is to publish a build scan. To do so, just run Gradle with the --scan flag.

$ ./gradlew build --scan

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 0s
7 actionable tasks: 7 executed

Publishing a build scan to scans.gradle.com requires accepting the Gradle Terms of Service defined at https://gradle.com/terms-of-service.
Do you accept these terms? [yes, no] yes

Gradle Terms of Service accepted.

Publishing build scan...
https://gradle.com/s/5u4w3gxeurtd2

Click the link and explore which tasks where executed, which dependencies where downloaded and many more details!

Summary

That’s it! You’ve now successfully configured and built a C++ application project with Gradle. You’ve learned how to:

  • Initialize a project that produces a C++ application

  • Build, bundle and run the application

Next steps

To learn more about how you can further customize C++ application projects, check out the user manual chapter on Building C++ projects.