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Building and Using SFML

How do I build SFML?

Tutorials for each version of SFML can be found here. The first part of these tutorials is aimed at getting started, which includes building SFML with CMake and your build tool of choice, as well as setting up your IDE (if you use one) for use with SFML.

Are there any "nightly builds"?

Our CI (continuous integration) system is building every commit on the master branch and saving the built binaries as artifacts, ready to be downloaded. You can find them either by commit hash or branch name.

Link to the artifacts

How do I setup my development environment to work with SFML?

This is covered quite thoroughly in the tutorials section for some of the most popular IDEs.

Check out the Getting Started sections of the /tutorials/.

When you want to use SFML, you need to link to the library files that provide the functionality you make use of in your application.

SFML is divided into 5 modules:

  • System provided by sfml-system
  • Window provided by sfml-window
  • Graphics provided by sfml-graphics
  • Audio provided by sfml-audio
  • Network provided by sfml-network

Be aware that the modules have interdependencies on each other. For instance, if you plan on using the Graphics module, you will also have to link against the Window and System modules as well.

Dependencies:

  • System does not depend on anything and can be used by itself.
  • Window depends on System.
  • Graphics depends on Window and System.
  • Audio depends on System.
  • Network depends on System.

As you can see you will always have to link against sfml-system, no matter what you do.

Be aware that some linkers are sensitive to the order in which you specify libraries to link against.

GCC (which implies MinGW as well) requires that the dependees (libraries that others depend on) are specified after the dependers (libraries that depend on others).

An example of a GCC command line linking all modules would be as follows:

g++ main.o -o sfml-app -lsfml-graphics -lsfml-window -lsfml-audio -lsfml-network -lsfml-system

This is explained as well in this forum post.

In Code::Blocks for example you would have to make sure the dependees come after the dependers in the list of libraries to link against.

In order to link SFML statically, you'll need to setup your build environment to link against the static libraries of SFML. Static libraries are the ones with a -s suffix, for example sfml-graphics-s. Next, you'll need to add SFML_STATIC to the preprocessor option and, as always, you'll need to make sure to link the debug libraries (-d suffix) in debug mode and the release libraries (no -d suffix) in release mode.

In the past, SFML included on Windows all its dependencies into the SFML libraries. However, this was changed to eliminate multiple issues and get a commonly expected behavior (full discussion). Now, SFML behaves the same on Linux as well as on Windows, which however means, that you need to link SFML's dependencies on your own when linking statically. Since the dependencies aren't obvious to everyone, here's a listing:

Windows

  • sfml-window
    • sfml-system
    • opengl32
    • winmm
    • gdi32
  • sfml-graphics
    • sfml-system
    • sfml-window
    • opengl32
    • freetype
  • sfml-audio
    • sfml-system
    • openal32
    • flac
    • vorbisenc
    • vorbisfile
    • vorbis
    • ogg
  • sfml-network
    • sfml-system
    • ws2_32
  • sfml-system
    • winmm

Note: For Windows all dependencies can be found in the extlibs directory.

Example

Here's a diagram showing how the static linking should look like.

 sfml-window-s  sfml-system-s  opengl32  winmm  gdi32
         |         |            |         |      |
         | +-------+            |         |      |
         | | +------------------+         |      |
         | | | +--------------------------+      |
         | | | | +-------------------------------+
         | | | | |
         v v v v v
        example.exe