How do I tell cmake not to create a console window?

Question

I can achieve this by gcc :

gcc -mwindows -o simple simple.c

But only find this in cmake:

add_executable(simple WIN32 simple.c)

But it's not exactly the same as -mwindows,

this will require the entry point to be WinMain,

while gcc -mwindows doesn't require this(can be main).

How should I do it properly?

This is a duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2752792/whats-the-equivalent-of-gccs-mwindows-option-in-cmake. — MKroehnert, May 16 '10 at 08:59
Does this answer your question? [What's the equivalent of gcc's -mwindows option in cmake?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2752792/whats-the-equivalent-of-gccs-mwindows-option-in-cmake) — legends2k, Nov 18 '22 at 15:18

score 23 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 23 '11 at 02:44

If you use:

add_executable(simple WIN32 simple.c)

then you must provide a WinMain function. That's what the WIN32 flag to add_executable means: it means you're going to make it a Windows program, and provide a WinMain function.

I would recommend doing it this way if you're really writing a Windows application. It's what makes the most sense and fits most naturally with the underlying OS.

However, if you still want to pass gcc the "-mwindows" flag, but use a "main" anyway, then simply add "-mwindows" to the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS and/or CMAKE_C_FLAGS value. You can do this in the cmake-gui program by adjusting those variables interactively to include "-mwindows" or you can do it with command line CMake, like this:

cmake -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS="-mwindows"

Just found this and it solved a very annoying problem of cmake plus a console-less windows app. In particular the desire to remove the console was made well into the project and well after the cmake magic had been weaved. THANK YOU! — Darakian, Oct 23 '17 at 15:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 06 '12 at 11:51

As DLRdave has said saying that the executable will be a win32 one means it will have WinMain as the entry point and be a windows application.

If the application is to be cross platform still then the usual means to suppress the console window but still allow use of main is to write a stub WinMain as found in the SDL or SFML libraries which simply calls the main function with the global variables __argc and __argv as arguments and returns its result.

This prevents the application from having a console window but reduces the disruption to the code of having to use WinMain as the entry point.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 02 '19 at 17:48

1

You can add target link option (for new versions of Cmake)

target_link_options(simple PRIVATE -mwindows)

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.4.2/gcc/i386-and-x86_002d64-Windows-Options.html

answered Nov 02 '19 at 17:48

YuryChu

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 29 '22 at 17:09

In case you need it for both Windows and Linux

if (WIN32)
    # /ENTRY:mainCRTStartup keeps the same "main" function instead of requiring "WinMain"
    set(SUBSYSTEM_LINKER_OPTIONS "/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS /ENTRY:mainCRTStartup")
else()
    set(SUBSYSTEM_LINKER_OPTIONS "-mwindows")
endif()

target_link_options(TargetName PRIVATE ${SUBSYSTEM_LINKER_OPTIONS})

How do I tell cmake not to create a console window?

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