======About Ctor======
Welcome to the official ctor.cc C++ build system website!

> Have you ever wondered, why, when you are a C++ programmer and you want to compile a C++ project, you also need to learn some //other// language (such as make, cmake, lua, python, m4, ...) in order to be able to build your project?

Well, wonder no more - **ctor** is here!

"'ctor" is an often used short-hand form of the word "constructor" referring to the class function that sets up the internals of an object in object oriented programming - so the intended pronunciation of "ctor" is //constructor// but sometimes also referred to as //see-tor//.

Ctor is a C++ based build system, making it possible to configure and build complex projects without writing a single line of non-C++.

It aims towards the feature-richness found in auto-tools and beyond, but with a compilation speed rivalling that of raw makefiles.

And the //only// dependency is a functioning C++ compiler!

======Get it======
Clone:
<code>
git clone --recursive git://git.ctor.cc/ctor.git libctor
</code>

Browse the sources: http://cgit.ctor.cc/ctor.git/

======License======
Ctor is distributed under the BSD 2-Clause License.
See accompanying file [[http://cgit.ctor.cc/ctor.git/tree/LICENSE|LICENSE]] for details.

======Getting started======
If the ctor library is already available as part of your distro skip directly to "How to set up your build configuration".

=====Adding libctor to your project=====
Assuming you are working on a git repository:
<code>
git submodule add git://git.ctor.cc/ctor.git libctor
git submodule update --init --recursive
</code>
This should give you all the files you need to build your code.
Enter the libctor dir and run the ''./boostrap.sh'' script, which will build the ctor binary.
Then run ''./ctor'' to build it - it will end up in the build subfolder.

=====How to set up your build configuration=====
Assuming that you have a project with a two C++ source files, ''hello.cc'' and ''world.cc'', and would like to compile them into an application binary (target) with the name ''hello'':

In the root of your project you can create your first ''ctor.cc'' build configuration file:
<code c++>
#include <ctor.h>
namespace
{
ctor::build_configurations myConfigs(const ctor::settings& settings)
{
  return
    {
      {
        .target = "hello",  // output filename
        .sources = { "hello.cc", "world.cc" }, // list of source files to compile
        // See ctor.h for more options
      }
    };
}
}

// Register callback
REG(myConfigs);
</code>

Now you just need to compile the ''ctor.cc'' file along with the ''libctor.a'' library:
<code>
g++ -std=c++20 ctor.cc -Llibctor/build -lctor -Ilibctor/src -pthread -o ctor
</code>

Finally the ''configure'' step must be carried out to set (at least) the include and lib paths to ctor (this step can be skipped if ctor is installed in the system paths such as ''/usr/include'' and ''/usr/lib''):
<code>
./ctor configure --ctor-includedir=libctor/src --ctor-libdir=libctor/build
</code>

One can advantageously put these commands into a ''boostrap.sh'' script for the project. It will only be needed the first time ''ctor'' is being built.

Finally, run ''./ctor'' to build your project.

======Getting Help======
To get help log on to libera.chat on the [[http://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/irc.libera.chat:+6697/#ctor|#ctor]] channel.