First steps

Let's start with a very simple project. You only have one source file in your project folder and you want to compile it into an executable.

The minimum working example

my_project
└── my_app.cpp

All you have to do, to compile this app is go into your project folder and call

clang-build

Your project quickly grows and you decide to put all your headers into an include folder and all your source files into a src folder.

my_project
├── include
|   ├── cool_features.hpp
|   └── math_lib.hpp
└── src
    ├── cool_features.cpp
    └── my_app.cpp

To compile your project, you just go into your project folder and call:

clang-build

The include folder will automatically be added as an include folder to clang. So all files in the include folder or subfolders of the include folder can be included in the source files in the src folder as you would normally do:

// my_app.cpp
#include "math_lib.hpp"
// ...

At the same time, all source files in the src folder and subfolders of the src folder are automatically detected, compiled and linked into one executable.

Switching between debug and release

By default clang-build compiles in Release mode meaning optimizations are turned on. If you want to debug an application, you need to pass extra flags to the compiler. clang-build does this automatically if you pass it the debug flag:

clang-build --build-type debug

or

clang-build -b debug