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Accepted
eddyxu
Asked: 2012-06-04 04:01:50 +0800 CST

Why no library files installed for google test?

  • 772

The libgtest-dev package seems only install header files to the system, but not the static and dynamic libraries which should be installed under /usr/lib.

Is it a bug?

application-development

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Is it a bug?

    No, it's deliberate:

    gtest (1.6.0-1ubuntu2) precise; urgency=low

  * Stop distributing static library (although still build it, to ensure gtest
    works).  Upstream recommends against shipping the libary at all, just the
    source. (See: http://code.google.com/p/googletest/wiki/FAQ)
    The Debian maintainer plans to do this also (see BTS: 639795); do it in
    Ubuntu now to fulfil MIR requirements.

    To build static libraries

    cd /usr/src/gtest
sudo cmake .
sudo make
sudo mv libg* /usr/lib/

    Edit:

    The names have changed slightly over the years, though the process remains the same. In Ubuntu 17.04:

    sudo apt-get install libgtest-dev
cd /usr/src/googletest/googletest
sudo mkdir build
cd build
sudo cmake ..
sudo make
sudo cp libgtest* /usr/lib/
cd ..
sudo rm -rf build
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  2. Improving on izx's answer I would have used cmake this way:

    sudo cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE .

    and I would attempt an out-of-source build:

    cd /tmp
mkdir .build
cd .build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE /usr/src/gtest/
make
sudo mv libg* /usr/lib/
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  3. Note that the recommended way by google is to have your existing project pull the gtest source code in.

    Alternatively, when using with CMake, you can use add_subdirectory to add the gtest source that came with libgtest-dev since it by default goes into /usr/src/googletest.

    The following will work

    add_subdirectory(/usr/src/googletest gtest)
target_link_libraries(your_executable gtest)
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