Best practice of c/C++ dependency management on build servers?

Question

I develop largely in java which has maven or ant/ivy. Is there a recommended way to manage build dependencies for c++ projects? I'm setting up the build on our build server right now but the thing that comes to mind is that if the dependency libraries change how do I track that so old builds are not affected but new ones can use newer versions of a library?

One simple thought is that I move all the third party libraries into my repository and then reference them with:

#include "sqlite3.h"
#include "mosquitto.h"

Instead of

#include <sqlite3.h>
#include <mosquitto.h>

Can someone recommend how to best do this in production?

Answer 1

Moving third party build dependencies into your repository is perfectly fine, and even has some advantages (eg. no version mismatches, tracked upgrades). But doing so should not touch your code.

C/C++ use an include path to determine where to find libraries that are included like so

#include <...>

Depending on your toolchain and build system, you'll have to follow different steps to configure this. Regardless, the best thing would be to create a "third_party" folder with subfolders containing each dependency. Then add each of those folders to your include path such that your existing include directives work.

In CMake, you should use the target_include_directories to accomplish this. In a plain Makefile with GCC or clang, you would add the -I flag for each folder.