Can't compile with CMake and ncurses

Question

I'm aware similar questions have been posted, but I can't see how they relate to my case. I will preface this question by saying I'm not very familiar with CMake, so it's entirely possible this is a quick fix and I just don't see it!

I am collaborating on a project, and yesterday my teammate added the ncurses library to the project to build a terminal GUI. Ever since ncurses was added, I haven't been able to compile my project. However, I did install all 6 ncurses-* packages, so it should behave with my machine.

I have pulled down the latest version of the master branch from our GitHub repo, which compiles and runs perfectly on his machine. However it won't even compile on mine.

System:
Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon
CMake Version 3.5.1

Things I've tried:
I deleted CMakeCache.txt and reloaded it
I deleted my entire CMake build directory and redid make

CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)
project(irc)

set(SHARED_FLAGS " -Wall -Wextra -Wshadow -Werror -g -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -lncurses")
set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS "-std=c11 ${SHARED_FLAGS}")
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "-std=c++11 ${SHARED_FLAGS}")

include_directories(include)

add_library(client_core SHARED src/client/irc_client.c)

add_executable(client src/client/irc_client_gui.c)
add_executable(server src/server/irc_server.c)

// SOLUTION - MISSING LINE
target_link_libraries(client ncurses)

install(FILES include/irc_client.h DESTINATION include)
install(FILES include/irc_server.h DESTINATION include)

CMakeOutput:

CMakeFiles/client.dir/src/client/irc_client_gui.c.o: In function `main':
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:17: 
undefined reference to `initscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:18: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:18: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:18: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:18: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:19: 
undefined reference to `mvprintw'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:21: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:21: 
undefined reference to `wgetnstr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:22: 
undefined reference to `LINES'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:22: 
undefined reference to `mvprintw'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:23: 
undefined reference to `stdscr'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:23: 
undefined reference to `wgetch'
/home/chrisjansson/Documents/irc/src/client/irc_client_gui.c:24: 
undefined reference to `endwin'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
CMakeFiles/client.dir/build.make:94: recipe for target 'client' failed
make[2]: *** [client] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:104: recipe for target 'CMakeFiles/client.dir/all' 
failed
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/client.dir/all] Error 2
Makefile:127: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

Interestingly enough, if I copy/paste irc_client_gui.c somewhere else on my machine, compile it manually with gcc and run it, it works perfectly. So the issue isn't my machine, it's something with CMake trying to compile my entire project. Any ideas? Thanks so much!

Answer 1

The solution is to add a line like this:

target_link_libraries(client ncurses)

This tells CMake that when it is linking the client target, it should use the -lncurses option to link in the ncurses library.