CMake support for SuiteSparse

This fork provides SuiteSparse with an integrated native CMake support layer. The source tree follows SuiteSparse by T. A. Davis and contributors. The CMake layer simplifies building SuiteSparse, including CXSparse, on a variety of platforms.

Motivation

This fork provides an integration that follows CMake practices important to downstream consumers: object libraries instead of source shims, a unified native package configuration for SuiteSparse libraries, and generated explicit export headers instead of exporting every symbol. It preserves source-level fixes and broader Windows support while continuing to track upstream.

The shared libraries preserve upstream SuiteSparse library names, SONAMEs, versions, and documented public APIs. They are intended to be interchangeable with upstream-built libraries when their external dependencies match. Internal symbols remain hidden by design, so this guarantee applies to documented public APIs, not undocumented implementation symbols.

Highlights

The CMake layer also provides:

Build and packaging

• Native, relocatable CMake package configurations for SuiteSparse libraries and CXSparse
• SPDX SBOM support with CMake 4.3 or newer that consults the original license files, which remain authoritative
• CPack support

Platform and toolchain support

• Practical CUDA builds using upstream sources with consistent host compiler selection and CMake target wiring
• Explicit DLL exports on Windows and hidden symbol visibility by default on supported platforms, enabling link-time optimization (LTO)
• Support for using MinGW BLAS and LAPACK when compiling SuiteSparse with Visual Studio
• GitHub releases with MSVC binaries and full BLAS and LAPACK support
• MSVC support extends upstream's baseline with dedicated C complex handling and shared and static build coverage

Portability and compatibility

• Automatic detection of BLAS symbol naming and compiler support for C complex types

Requirements

• C99-compatible compiler, or Microsoft C compiler with complex math support
• CMake 3.22 or newer
• BLAS and LAPACK for the full SuiteSparse build. CXSparse does not require them.
• Optional dependencies:
  • C++98 compiler
  • CUDA compiler and toolkit
  • Fortran compiler
  • METIS
  • TBB before version 2021.4

Getting Started

Configure and build with:

$ cmake -S . -B build/
$ cmake --build build/
$ cmake --install build/

To run the SuiteSparse tests with CTest, configure with BUILD_TESTING=ON and run:

$ cmake -S . -B build/ -DBUILD_TESTING=ON
$ ctest --test-dir build/ --output-on-failure

You can use SuiteSparse directly from the build directory or after installing the project:

find_package (SuiteSparse 7.12 NO_MODULE)

add_executable (myexe main.cpp)
target_link_libraries (myexe PRIVATE SuiteSparse::CHOLMOD)

Historical Background

The repository was created in 2015 to track the original SuiteSparse releases. SuiteSparse became a GitHub project in late 2019. Since July 2026, this repository is tracking upstream development by regularly merging the upstream stable branch into its master branch. It also includes a native CMake support layer to simplify builds across major platforms.

The CMake layer in this repository extends upstream's baseline Windows support. It provides MSVC-compatible handling for C complex types, explicit symbol exports for shared libraries, and demo variants that are not part of upstream's default CMake targets. MinGW uses GCC with native C99 complex arithmetic, while MSVC's C compiler requires dedicated complex-type support. The Windows build also provides full BLAS and LAPACK support for the published MSVC binaries.

The suitesparse-metis-for-windows project was also available, but its CMake support had several limitations. In particular, it did not provide relocatable CMake package configurations and relied on Python to preprocess source files. This was still the case in August 2021.

The SuiteSparse project maintained by Dr. Timothy A. Davis followed a different path. In June 2020, generated type variants required compiling source files multiple times, and refactoring was needed to avoid this. By December 2022, the project had a CMake-based build system mostly in place. The SuiteSparse project's README.md is retained under the name README.md.suitesparse. For current upstream documentation, see the upstream README.

Licensing

The CMake support layer is available under the Apache License 2.0. Modifications to the SuiteSparse code base are available under the same conditions as the original code.

The original CMake additions could not be incorporated into official SuiteSparse releases under the required intellectual property terms. The upstream CMake discussion records this history and the subsequent upstream implementation.