Example C++ CI Project and CI Services Comparison

An example project to test and compare different CI (Continuous Integration) services building a C++ project on Linux, Mac, Windows with GCC, Clang (libc++ and libstdc++), MSVC and Clang-cl. It uses Vcpkg for installing dependencies.

Note: This tries to be a simple and robust CI setup that is a comprehensive introduction and is open for improvements. It does not use more advanced configurations like build matrices and instead tries to be a bit more specific (even if that means repetition).

Supported CI services, platforms and Compilers

AppVeyor

• Linux:
  • Clang 14 + libc++
  • GCC 11 + libstdc++
• macOS:
  • Clang 13 + libc++
  • GCC 12 + libstdc++
• Windows:
  • MSVC 2022

CircleCI

• Linux:
  • Clang 14 + libc++
  • Clang 14 + libstdc++
  • GCC 11 + libstdc++
• macOS:
  • Clang 13 + libc++
  • Clang 13 + libstdc++
  • GCC 12 + libstdc++
• Windows:
  • MSVC 2022
  • Clang-cl

GitHub Actions

• Linux:
  • Clang 14 + libc++
  • Clang 14 + libstdc++
  • GCC 12 + libstdc++
• macOS:
  • Clang 13 + libc++
  • Clang 13 + libstdc++
  • GCC 12 + libstdc++
• Windows:
  • MSVC 2022
  • Clang-cl

Travis

No longer supported, since they dropped their free Open Source support.

Example Programs

Note: This project contains example programs that serve no other purpose than being examples. The programs themselves don't make much sense on their own.

• src/show_info: Outputs a couple of strings describing the compiler and C++ standard library that were used to build the program.
• src/example: Builds example (just shows some simple output) and example_tests (an example for running tests).

Build and Installation Scripts

The .ci directory contains a couple of scripts for installing Vcpkg and building the project. All CI services use these scripts to simplify their configurations.

• install-vcpkg.sh / install-vcpkg.ps1: Download and install Vcpkg or update an already existing Vcpkg installation.
• build-project.sh / build-project.ps1: Build the project itself.
• build-project-with-clang-cl.ps1: Used on Windows to build the project with Clang-cl.

Dependencies

• CMake
• Vcpkg to install dependencies:
  • fmtlib
  • Catch2 + FakeIt

Sanitizers

Where possible all programs are build using Address Sanitizer.

Note: Clang-cl does not support Address Sanitizer in Debug mode. Build with RelWithDebInfo instead.

Example program output

show_info

Output depends on compiler and C++ standard library.

GCC and libstdc++:

__cplusplus: 202002
__GNUC__: 11
_GLIBCXX_RELEASE: 11

Clang and libc++:

__cplusplus: 202002
__clang_version__: 14.0.5 
_LIBCPP_VERSION: 14000

Clang and libstdc++:

__cplusplus: 202002
__clang_version__: 14.0.5 
_GLIBCXX_RELEASE: 11

MSVC:

__cplusplus: 199711
_MSC_VER: 1932

Clang-cl:

__cplusplus: 202002
_MSC_VER: 1932
__clang_version__: 13.0.1 

example

Everything seems to be working.

example_tests

Randomness seeded to: 1486164745
===============================================================================
All tests passed (16 assertions in 3 test cases)

Pre-installed Software

The CI VMs or Docker images come with already pre-installed software.

• AppVeyor: macOS, Linux, Windows
• CircleCI: macOS, Linux (image, Docker file), Windows
• GitHub: macOS, Linux, Windows