Linker error when trying to include google-cloud-cpp-bigtable in my project.

[rick-droid]

System used: Debian-bullseye-slim
C++ version : 20
Compiler used: clang++19

I wanted to use the BigTable client library in my project, hence I did
vcpkg install google-cloud-cpp[core,bigtable]

This install went through. google-cloud-cpp is included in vcpkg list:

abseil:arm64-linux                                20250127.1          Abseil is an open-source collection of C++ libra...
abseil[cxx17]:arm64-linux                                             Enable compiler C++17.
c-ares:arm64-linux                                1.34.5              A C library for asynchronous DNS requests
google-cloud-cpp:arm64-linux                      2.36.0              C++ Client Libraries for Google Cloud Platform A...
google-cloud-cpp[bigtable]:arm64-linux                                The Google Cloud Bigtable C++ client library
google-cloud-cpp[grpc-common]:arm64-linux                             Dependencies used by all gRPC-based libraries
grpc:arm64-linux                                  1.71.0              gRPC is a modern, open source, high-performance ...
grpc[codegen]:arm64-linux                                             Build code generator machinery
openssl:arm64-linux                               3.5.0#1             OpenSSL is an open source project that provides ...
protobuf:arm64-linux                              5.29.3              Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, ext...
re2:arm64-linux                                   2024-07-02          RE2 is a fast, safe, thread-friendly alternative...
utf8-range:arm64-linux                            5.29.3              Fast UTF-8 validation with Range algorithm (NEON...
vcpkg-cmake-config:arm64-linux                    2024-05-23          
vcpkg-cmake-get-vars:arm64-linux                  2024-09-22          
vcpkg-cmake:arm64-linux                           2024-04-23          
zlib:arm64-linux                                  1.3.1               A compression library        

I included it in my root CMakeLists.txt as follows:

set(CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE "${VCPKG_ROOT}/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake")
find_package(google_cloud_cpp_bigtable REQUIRED)

In the subdirectory, I tried to link the library as follows:

target_link_libraries(MyService PRIVATE google_cloud_cpp_bigtable)

When I try to build my project, it can find the package but shows a linker error with lots of undefined references. This is part of the log:

/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x1e9c): undefined reference to `google::bigtable::v2::RowSet::CopyFrom(google::bigtable::v2::RowSet const&)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x1ea4): undefined reference to `google::bigtable::v2::RowSet::~RowSet()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x1eac): undefined reference to `google::bigtable::v2::RowRange::~RowRange()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x1f6c): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2044): undefined reference to `google::bigtable::v2::RowSet::InternalSwap(google::bigtable::v2::RowSet*)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2108): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status(google::cloud::v2_36::StatusCode, std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, google::cloud::v2_36::ErrorInfo)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2114): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status(google::cloud::v2_36::Status&&)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2120): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2234): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2240): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status(google::cloud::v2_36::Status&&)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x224c): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2254): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2274): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status(google::cloud::v2_36::Status&&)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2288): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2294): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status(google::cloud::v2_36::Status&&)'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x22a0): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x22b0): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x22e4): undefined reference to `google::cloud::v2_36::Status::~Status()'
/usr/bin/ld: legacy_row_reader.cc:(.text+0x2320): undefined reference to `google::bigtable::v2::RowRange::~RowRange()'
clang++-19: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

What am I doing wrong and what can I do to resolve this?

[scotthart]

I would recommend trying to get the Bigtable quickstart running as a first step.

https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-cpp/tree/main/google/cloud/bigtable/quickstart

Looking at your CMakeLists.txt, I would recommend you try changing the target_link_libraries to:

target_link_libraries(MyService google-cloud-cpp::bigtable)

[rick-droid]

Changing that causes the following error:

CMake Error at /vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake:639 (_add_library):
  Target "MyService" links to target
  "google_cloud_cpp::bigtable" but the target was not found.  Perhaps a
  find_package() call is missing for an IMPORTED target, or an ALIAS target
  is missing?
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  lib/CMakeLists.txt:14 (add_library)

[rick-droid]

Also, in the quickstart, it is suggested to do the following after installing the package:

cd $HOME/google-cloud-cpp/google/cloud/bigtable/quickstart
cmake -S . -B .build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$HOME/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
cmake --build .build

However, installing google-cloud-cpp via vcpkg does not clone the actual repository. I did not find any directory named google-cloud-cpp after the vcpkg install. Where does it expect me to run cmake from?