Project Template - Premake5 + Ninja (Header Only Deps)

A modern and cross-platform template for C++ projects using only header-only dependencies.

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📦 Requirements

To use this project, you must have the following tools installed and available in your system PATH:

• Git
• GCC on Linux, Clang on MacOS, and MSVC on Windows

🧠 Minimum Compiler Versions

Compiler	Version
GCC	7.0
Clang	5.0
MSVC	19.11 (Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3)

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🧪 How to Use This Template

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Clone this repository

   git clone https://github.com/tGstep/Cpp-Modern-Header-Only.git
   cd Cpp-Modern-Header-Only

2. Install required tools
   From the root directory, run the platform-specific script:

   • On Linux/macOS:

     ./scripts/install_tools.sh

   • On Windows:

     .\scripts\install_tools.ps1

3. Add dependencies
   Modify the deps.json file to include the header-only libraries you need. Example:

   [
     {
       "name": "example_dep",
       "repo": "https://github.com/user/example_dep",
       "includes": "include"
     }
   ]

4. Fetch dependencies
   This will clone the GitHub repos into external/.

   • On Linux/macOS:

     ./scripts/fetch_dependencies.sh

   • On Windows:

     .\scripts\fetch_dependencies.ps1

5. Generate build files using Premake and Ninja

   premake5 ninja

6. Build the project

   ninja -C build

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🔎 How to Search for Header-Only Libraries

A search helper that find libraries is provided.

• On Linux/macOS:

  ./scripts/fetch_dependencies.sh example_dep

• On Windows:

  .\scripts\fetch_dependencies.ps1 example_dep

You will be prompted to add the found library to deps.json automatically.

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🗂️ File Structure

.
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── build.yml             # GitHub Actions build
├── build/                        # Ninja build output
├── external/                     # Cloned header-only libraries
├── scripts/                      # Automation scripts
│   ├── install_tools.sh          # Install premake, ninja and premake-ninja module (Linux/macOS)
│   ├── install_tools.ps1         # Install premake, ninja and premake-ninja module (Windows)
│   ├── fetch_dependencies.sh     # Search and install helper (Linux/macOS)
│   └── fetch_dependencies.ps1    # Search and install helper (Windows)
├── src/
│   └── main.cpp                  # Sample source
├── deps.json                     # Dependency list
├── premake5.lua                  # Project configuration
├── README.md                     # This file
└── premake-ninja/                # Cloned premake-ninja backend

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📚 Official References

• Premake5
• Ninja
• premake-ninja
• awesome-hpp