Single cme.cmake script that embeds all assets within a certain directory into a C/C++ library using the #embed directive, despite the latter currently lacking official implementation. In C++, the assets can be loaded at runtime (default) or compile-time using relative paths with perfect hash lookup via serge-sans-paille/frozen.

Normally, the assets are placed into a library and thus compiled only once, but they can optionally be placed into the headers with CONSTEXPR to e.g. allow for compile-time programming or embedding into the source of your choice.

Works with gcc 15+ and Clang 19+ (Clang 20+ for C++20-modules), earlier compiler versions probably won't recognize #embed. MSVC seems to lack C23 implementations, meaning it likely won't work just yet; just use Clang on Windows as well.

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(cme
    GIT_REPOSITORY "https://github.com/M2-TE/cme.git"
    GIT_TAG "v1.2.3"
    GIT_SHALLOW ON)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(cme)

cme_create_library(
    assets # name of your asset library (affects CMake target name and C++ namespace)
    STATIC # [STATIC, SHARED, INTERFACE, CONSTEXPR] # choose one
    CXX    # [C, CXX, CXX_MODULE]                   # choose one
    BASE_DIR "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/assets")  # directory containing all your assets
    FILES "subfolder/stuff.txt" "subfolder/morestuff.txt" # optional: embed specific files
# asset library target will be cme:: and the name you have chosen
target_link_libraries(${your_library} PRIVATE cme::assets)

// with CXX_MODULE
import cme.assets;
// with CXX
#include "cme/assets.hpp"

int main() {
    // "assets" used as the asset library name
    cme::Asset asset = assets::load("subfolder/stuff.txt");
    // with CONSTEXPR or INTERFACE:
    static constexpr cme::Asset sc_asset = assets::load("subfolder/stuff.txt");
}

#include "cme/assets.h"
int main() {
    // asset in this example is: "subfolder/stuff.txt"
    uint8_t* data = subfolder_stuff_txt;
    uint64_t size = subfolder_stuff_txt_size;
}