# Starting from scratch

## New project

The Vertices SDK is built to be included in any project as an external component.

The best way to achieve this is probably to make use of [git submodules](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Submodules).

So let's say we have a clean repository with empty directories:

* `external`: I like to have a directory keeping external libs
* `components`: provided by the SDK you are building on
* `myproject`: the source code your team is writing
* `utils`: some scripts and tools that are useful
* `build`: generated build files

```bash
mkdir porting_guide
cd porting_guide
mkdir external components myproject utils build
```

The structure is alive. Let's get the SDK.

```bash
# init directory as a git repository
git init
# clone SDK into external/c-vertices-sdk
git submodule add https://github.com/vertices-network/c-vertices-sdk external/c-vertices-sdk
# update submodules of the SDK itself
git submodule update --init --recursive
# check content of the SDK
ls external/c-vertices-sdk
```

Let's create a `main.c` file with the minimum content:

```bash
touch myproject/main.c
```

```c
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("Hello world\n");

    return 0;
}

```

## CMake

We can now init our project with two CMake files that will be used to build the entire project:

```bash
touch CMakeLists.txt myproject/CMakeLists.txt
```

Here is the minimum content of the root `CMakeLists.txt`:

```
cmake_minimum_required (3.20)
project (porting_guide)

# adding the Vertices SDK
add_subdirectory(external/c-vertices-sdk)

# adding the User code
add_subdirectory(myproject)
```

Now we can add our `main.c` file into `myproject/CMakeLists.txt`:

```
set(PROJECT_NAME myproject)
project(${PROJECT_NAME})

# add source file related to that project
set(SRC_FILES
        main.c
        )

# Add directories to include below (headers folders)
set(INC_FOLDERS
        )

include_directories(${INC_FOLDERS})
add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SRC_FILES})
```

### The missing link

Before we can start including headers from the Vertices SDK, we need to add the library into `myproject` :

At the end of `myproject/CMakeLists.txt`, append that line:

```
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} vertices)
```

Now you can include the Vertices header in the main file:

```c
#include "vertices.h" // ready to use the Vertices SDK library
```

There are still some missing parts that will be covered in the next chapters.

{% hint style="info" %}
Follow the next step to get our implementation of those first two steps 🥳&#x20;
{% endhint %}


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