Usage

SimpleBLE works on Windows, Linux, MacOS and iOS. Please follow the instructions below to build and run SimpleBLE in your specific environment.

System Requirements

When building SimpleBLE from source, you will need some dependencies based on your current operating system.

NOTE: WSL does not support Bluetooth.

General Requirements

CMake (Version 3.21 or higher)

Linux

APT-based Distros

libdbus-1-dev (install via sudo apt install libdbus-1-dev)

RPM-based Distros

dbus-devel

On Fedora, install via sudo dnf install dbus-devel

On CentOS, install via sudo yum install dbus-devel

Windows

Windows SDK (Version 10.0.19041.0 or higher)

MacOS

Xcode Command Line Tools (install via xcode-select --install)

Building and Installing SimpleBLE (Source)

Compiling the library is done using CMake and relies heavily on plenty of CMake functionality. It is strongly suggested that you get familiarized with CMake before blindly following the instructions below.

Building SimpleBLE

You can use the following commands to build SimpleBLE:

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble
cmake --build build_simpleble -j7

Note that if you want to modify the build configuration, you can do so by passing additional arguments to the cmake command. For example, to build a shared library set the BUILD_SHARED_LIBS CMake variable to TRUE

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=TRUE

To build a plain-flavored version of the library, set the SIMPLEBLE_PLAIN CMake variable to TRUE

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble -DSIMPLEBLE_PLAIN=TRUE

To modify the log level, set the SIMPLEBLE_LOG_LEVEL CMake variable to one of the following values: VERBOSE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble -DSIMPLEBLE_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

(Linux only) To force the usage of the DBus session bus, enable the SIMPLEBLE_USE_SESSION_DBUS flag

cmake -H <path-to-simplebluez> -B build_simplebluez -DSIMPLEBLE_USE_SESSION_DBUS=TRUE

Installing SimpleBLE

To install SimpleBLE, you can use the following commands:

cmake --install build_simpleble

Note that if you want to modify the installation configuration, you can do so by passing additional arguments to the cmake command. For example, to install the library to a specific location, set the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX CMake variable to the desired location

cmake --install build_simpleble --prefix /usr/local

Note that on Linux and MacOS, you will need to run the cmake --install command with sudo privileges.

sudo cmake --install build_simpleble

Usage with CMake (Installed)

Once SimpleBLE has been installed, it can be consumed from within CMake:

find_package(simpleble REQUIRED CONFIG)
target_link_libraries(<your-target> simpleble::simpleble)

Note that this example assumes that SimpleBLE has been installed to a location that is part of the default CMake module path.

Usage with CMake (Local)

You can add the simpleble library directory into your project and include it in your CMakeLists.txt file

add_subdirectory(<path-to-simpleble> ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/simpleble)
target_link_libraries(<your-target> simpleble::simpleble)

Usage with CMake (Vendorized)

If you want to use a vendorized copy of SimpleBLE, you can do so by using FetchContent and specifying the location from where SimpleBLE should be consumed from.

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
    simpleble
    GIT_REPOSITORY <simpleble-git-repository>
    GIT_TAG <simpleble-git-tag>
    GIT_SHALLOW YES
)

# Note that here we manually do what FetchContent_MakeAvailable() would do,
# except to ensure that the dependency can also get what it needs, we add
# custom logic between the FetchContent_Populate() and add_subdirectory()
# calls.
FetchContent_GetProperties(simpleble)
if(NOT simpleble_POPULATED)
    FetchContent_Populate(simpleble)
    list(APPEND CMAKE_MODULE_PATH "${simpleble_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/find")
    add_subdirectory("${simpleble_SOURCE_DIR}/simpleble" "${simpleble_BINARY_DIR}")
endif()

set(simpleble_FOUND 1)

You can put this code inside Findsimpleble.cmake and add it to your CMake module path, as depicted in cmake-init-fetchcontent.

Once vendorized using the above approach, you can consume SimpleBLE from within CMake as you’d normally do

find_package(simpleble REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(<your-target> simpleble::simpleble)

One key security feature of SimpleBLE is that it allows the user to specify the URLs and tags of all internal dependencies, thus allowing compilation from internal or secure sources without the risk of those getting compromised.

Currently, the following libraries are included as part of SimpleBLE, with the following CMake options available:

fmtlib
- LIBFMT_VENDORIZE: Enable vendorization of fmtlib. (Default: True)
- LIBFMT_GIT_REPOSITORY: The git repository to use for fmtlib.
- LIBFMT_GIT_TAG: The git tag to use for fmtlib. (Default: v9.1.0)
- LIBFMT_LOCAL_PATH: The local path to use for fmtlib. (Default: None)

Build Examples

Use the following instructions to build the provided SimpleBLE examples:

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble>/examples/simpleble -B build_simpleble_examples -DSIMPLEBLE_LOCAL=ON
cmake --build build_simpleble_examples -j7

Testing

To build and run unit and integration tests, the following packages are required:

sudo apt install libgtest-dev libgmock-dev python3-dev
pip3 install -r <path-to-simpleble>/test/requirements.txt

Unit Tests

To run the unit tests, run the following command:

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble_test -DSIMPLEBLE_TEST=ON
cmake --build build_simpleble_test -j7
./build_simpleble_test/bin/simpleble_test

Address Sanitizer Tests

To run the address sanitizer tests, run the following command:

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble_test -DSIMPLEBLE_SANITIZE=Address -DSIMPLEBLE_TEST=ON
cmake --build build_simpleble_test -j7
PYTHONMALLOC=malloc ./build_simpleble_test/bin/simpleble_test

It’s important for PYTHONMALLOC to be set to malloc, otherwise the tests will fail due to Python’s memory allocator from triggering false positives.

Thread Sanitizer Tests

To run the thread sanitizer tests, run the following command:

cmake -H <path-to-simpleble> -B build_simpleble_test -DSIMPLEBLE_SANITIZE=Thread -DSIMPLEBLE_TEST=ON
cmake --build build_simpleble_test -j7
./build_simpleble_test/bin/simpleble_test