CMake Error: CMake can not determine linker language for target: myapp

Question

I am trying to compile vMime by cmake, but I am getting error above, I am using graphical interface of cmake and my makefiles.txt is below. It configures properly but do not generate

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
PROJECT(CXX)#vmime
enable_language(CXX)
set(VerifyCXX VerifyCXX.cxx)
add_definitions(-DVERIFY_CXX)
set_target_properties(${TARGET} PROPERTIES LINKER_LANGUAGE Cxx)
add_executable(myapp vmime)
install(TARGETS myapp DESTINATION bin)

Help will be highly appreciated as I am stuck at point for couple of days.

What version of `cmake` do you have? It appears to me as if you have 2.8 or less installed, but the [current version seems to be 3.2.3](http://www.cmake.org/download/). If so, can you please upgrade to the newer version? — Ken Y-N, Jun 30 '15 at 06:21

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 30 '15 at 06:47

CMake probably can not determine linker language for target myapp, because the target does not contain any source files with recognized extensions.

add_executable(myapp vmime)

should be probably replaced by

add_executable(myapp ${VerifyCXX})

Also this command

set_target_properties(${TARGET} PROPERTIES LINKER_LANGUAGE Cxx)

cannot be succesfull, because ${TARGET} is used-before-set. You should call it after add_executable

set_target_properties(myapp PROPERTIES LINKER_LANGUAGE CXX)

Note that usually it is not needed at all.

Thankx, that was really useful . – Ahsan Roy Jul 24 '15 at 15:23 — Ahsan Roy, Jul 24 '15 at 15:23

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 00:10

For others' benefit, make sure you did not overlook an earlier error such as:

Cannot find source file:

    MyFirstSourceFile.cpp

Another way to cause CMake to give you the error, "CMake Error: CMake can not determine linker language for target: myapp", is if you mistakenly point it exclusively at sources that do not exist.

For instance: I'm moving files from one directory to another and had the pre-move files with the post-move paths in my CMakeLists.txt. My output window is not very tall and I focused too soon on the "can not determine linker language" error!

Jayhello · Answer 3 · 2017-06-17T12:33:21.543

I use clion IDE based on cmake, my source files named *.cc

project(server)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11 -pthread")
file(GLOB SRC_FILE "main.cc" "listenfd.cc" "socket_util.cc"
    "timers.cc" "network.cc" "main_event.cc")
add_executable(server ${server})
set_target_properties(server PROPERTIES LINKER_LANGUAGE CXX)

after I change

add_executable(server ${server}) to 
add_executable(server "main.cc")

then I solved it, I really don't know why? after experiment I found when use file(GLOB ....) like file(GLOB "src/main.cc") I must specify the relative path, then it works.

CMake Error: CMake can not determine linker language for target: myapp

3 Answers3

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