Embedd binary data in executable using CMake

I faced some problem with embedding binary data into executable when I use CMake. The code for both options is the same and as follows:

#include <iostream> extern char _binary_res_txt_start; extern char _binary_res_txt_end; int main (int, char**) { for (char* c = &_binary_res_txt_start; c != &_binary_res_txt_end; ++c) { std::cout << *c; } return 0; } 

When I compile it with GCC:

g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror=return-type -Wl,--format=binary -Wl,res.txt -Wl,--format=default main.cpp -o main 

And my res.txt file stores simple "HELLO WORLD" text I get appropriate output, so everything as expected.

Now I would like to compile this code using CMake, so my attemp was:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10) set(app_name main) project(${app_name} CXX) set(BIN_DIR "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/bin") set(OPTIMIZATION_LEVEL " -O0") set(COMPILE_FLAGS_MAIN "-Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Wno-deprecated-declarations -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-unused-variable -Wl,--format=binary -Wl,res.txt -Wl,--format=default") set(COMPILE_FLAGS_RELEASE "${COMPILE_FLAGS_MAIN} ${OPTIMIZATION_LEVEL}") set(CPP_STD "17") set(CPP_STD_REQUIRED "ON") set(CPP_EXTENSION_REQUIRED "OFF") file(GLOB_RECURSE SOURCES "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/cpp/*.cpp") add_executable(${app_name} ${SOURCES}) set_target_properties(${app_name} PROPERTIES RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${BIN_DIR} COMPILE_FLAGS ${COMPILE_FLAGS_RELEASE} CXX_STANDARD ${CPP_STD} CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ${CPP_STD_REQUIRED} CXX_EXTENSIONS ${CPP_EXTENSION_REQUIRED}) 

And unfortunately during linkage I got:

main.cpp:(.text+0x13): undefined reference to `_binary_res_txt_start' main.cpp:(.text+0x1b): undefined reference to `_binary_res_txt_end' 

I did: cmake -Bbuild -H. && cmake --build build and my "project" structure looks like this:

├── CMakeLists.txt ├── res.txt └── src └── cpp └── main.cpp 

My observations and things that I have done so far:

• When I compile with command line nm main shows that objects are initialized

  0000000000601050 D _binary_res_txt_end 000000000000000c A _binary_res_txt_size 0000000000601044 D _binary_res_txt_start 

• When I compile it with CMake then those objects are not initialized:

  U _binary_res_txt_end U _binary_res_txt_start 

• It looks like CMake ignores linker option that I have passed, so I tried also with LINK_FLAGS, so I removed -Wl ... from COMPILE_FLAGS_MAIN and I modified set_target_properties call to:

  set_target_properties(${app_name} PROPERTIES RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${BIN_DIR} COMPILE_FLAGS ${COMPILE_FLAGS_RELEASE} CXX_STANDARD ${CPP_STD} CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ${CPP_STD_REQUIRED} CXX_EXTENSIONS ${CPP_EXTENSION_REQUIRED} LINK_FLAGS "-Wl,--format=binary -Wl,${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/res.txt -Wl,--format=default") 

So here when I pass file that does not exist, linker cries that's why I used PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR but still does not work.

• When I pass wrong path to file in COMPILE_FLAGS_MAIN then nothing happens.

Can anybody help me with this? I am not sure what wrong I am doing.