CMake 3.26 Release Notes

Changes made since CMake 3.25 include the following.

New Features

Languages

• The ASM_MARMASM language was added to support the Microsoft ARM assembler language.

Command-Line

• The cmake -E copy command-line tool now supports a -t argument.

• The cmake -E copy_directory_if_different command-line tool was added.

Configure Log

• CMake now writes a YAML log of configure-time checks to CMakeFiles/CMakeConfigureLog.yaml under the top of the build tree. See the cmake-configure-log(7) manual.

File-Based API

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 version field has been updated to 2.5.

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 "target" object gained a new fileSets field and associated fileSetIndex field to sources objects.

• The cmake-file-api(7) gained a new "configureLog" object kind that enables stable access to the cmake-configure-log(7).

Commands

• The add_custom_command() and add_custom_target() commands now support generator expressions in their COMMENT option.

• The message() command gained a CONFIGURE_LOG mode to record an entry in the cmake-configure-log(7).

• The string(TIMESTAMP) and file(TIMESTAMP) commands now support the %z and %Z specifiers for the time zone.

• The try_compile() and try_run() commands gained a LOG_DESCRIPTION option specifying text to be recorded in the cmake-configure-log(7).

• The try_compile() and try_run() commands gained a NO_LOG option to skip recording a cmake-configure-log(7) entry.

Variables

• The CMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER_FRONTEND_VARIANT variable is now set for GNU, MSVC, and AppleClang compilers that have only one frontend variant.

• A CMAKE_VS_VERSION_BUILD_NUMBER variable is now set by Visual Studio Generators for VS 2017 and above to report the four-component Visual Studio version number.

Properties

• The <LANG>_CLANG_TIDY_EXPORT_FIXES_DIR target property was added to allow the clang-tidy tool to export its suggested fixes to a set of .yaml files. A new CMAKE_<LANG>_CLANG_TIDY_EXPORT_FIXES_DIR variable was created to initialize this property.

• The XCODE_EMBED_EXTENSIONKIT_EXTENSIONS target property was added to tell the Xcode generator to embed ExtensionKit-based extensions such as extensions using the Background Assets framework. Aspects of the embedding can be customized with:

  • XCODE_EMBED_EXTENSIONKIT_EXTENSIONS_PATH

  • XCODE_EMBED_EXTENSIONKIT_EXTENSIONS_CODE_SIGN_ON_COPY

  • XCODE_EMBED_EXTENSIONKIT_EXTENSIONS_REMOVE_HEADERS_ON_COPY

Modules

• The ExternalProject module's ExternalProject_Add() command gained an INSTALL_BYPRODUCTS option to specify files generated by the install step.

• The FindCUDAToolkit module:

  • gained support for the sbsa-linux cross compilation target, and

  • now provides an imported target for nvrtc_static, if found.

• The FindImageMagick module now provides imported targets.

• The FindPython3 and FindPython modules gained support for the Stable Application Binary Interface.

• The UseSWIG module gained support for the perl5 language.

Generator Expressions

• The $<BUILD_LOCAL_INTERFACE:...> generator expression was added to prevent usage requirements from being exported to dependent projects.

CTest

• The CTEST_NO_TESTS_ACTION environment variable was added to provide a default value for the --no-tests=<action> command line argument of ctest(1).

Deprecated and Removed Features

• The CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log and CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log files are no longer populated by CMake's built-in modules. cmake(1) no longer suggests looking at them after a CMake Error occurs. Information previously logged to those files is instead logged to the cmake-configure-log(7).

• On CYGWIN, the undocumented CMAKE_LEGACY_CYGWIN_WIN32 mode for compatibility with CMake versions older than 2.8.4 has been removed.

Other Changes

• Language Standard Flags, such as -std=c++11, when generated due to target_compile_features() or CMAKE_<LANG>_STANDARD, are now placed before flags added by target_compile_options(), rather than after them.

• For all COMPILE_DEFINITIONS properties, any leading -D on an item is removed whether or not it was specified by a generator expression.

• The compile_commands.json database enabled by CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS now provides the output field in the compile commands objects. This allows multi-config generators, such as the Ninja Multi-Config generator, to provide the compile commands for all configurations.

• The USE_FOLDERS global property is treated as ON by default. See policy CMP0143.

• The top-level project() call will now emit an author warning if the documented command order in relation to cmake_minimum_required() is not respected.

• The cmake --trace option now follows try_compile() and try_run() invocations.

Updates

Changes made since CMake 3.26.0 include the following.

3.26.1, 3.26.2, 3.26.3, 3.26.4, 3.26.5

• These versions made no changes to documented features or interfaces. Some implementation updates were made to support ecosystem changes and/or fix regressions.

3.26.6

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 "target" object fileSets field was introduced by CMake 3.26.0 with entries of its baseDirectories member incorrectly expressed as absolute paths even if they are inside the top-level source directory. This has been fixed. Clients must be updated to expect relative paths under the top-level source directory.