CMake 3.17 Release Notes

Changes made since CMake 3.16 include the following.

New Features

Generators

• cmake(1) gained a Ninja Multi-Config generator, which is similar to the Ninja generator but can be used to build multiple configurations at once.

• Visual Studio Generators learned to support per-config sources. Previously only Command-Line Build Tool Generators supported them.

• Visual Studio Generators for VS 2010 and above now support specifying the VCTargetsPath value for project files in CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET setting.

• Visual Studio Generators for VS 2010 and above learned to support .NET Standard and .NET Core. See the DOTNET_TARGET_FRAMEWORK target property and associated CMAKE_DOTNET_TARGET_FRAMEWORK variable.

Languages

• The Compile Features functionality now offers meta-features for the CUDA language standard levels (e.g. cuda_std_03, cuda_std_14). See CMAKE_CUDA_KNOWN_FEATURES.

Compilers

• The IBM XL Fortran compiler is now supported by the Ninja generator.

Command-Line

• cmake(1) gained a --debug-find command-line option to enable additional human-readable output on where find_* commands search.

• cmake(1) gained a --trace-format command-line option that can be used to set the --trace output format. Currently, the old human readable and the new JSON format are supported. The new JSON format is easier to parse automatically than the existing format.

• cmake(1) gained a -E rm command-line tool that can be used to remove directories and files. This supersedes the existing -E remove and -E remove_directory tools and has better semantics.

Commands

• The add_custom_command() command learned to interpret paths in DEPENDS arguments that are specified relative to the current binary directory.

• The foreach() command learned a new ZIP_LISTS option to iterate over multiple lists simultaneously.

• The load_cache(READ_WITH_PREFIX) command mode is now allowed when using cmake -P to Run a Script.

• The message() command learned to output context provided in the CMAKE_MESSAGE_CONTEXT variable for log levels NOTICE and below. Enable this output with the new --log-context command-line option or CMAKE_MESSAGE_CONTEXT_SHOW variable.

• The message() command gained new keywords CHECK_START, CHECK_PASS and CHECK_FAIL.

• The target_compile_options() command now honors the BEFORE keyword more consistently. See policy CMP0101.

Variables

• A CMAKE_CTEST_ARGUMENTS variable was added to specify a list of command-line arguments passed to CTest when running through the test (or RUN_TESTS) target of the generated build system.

• The following variables are now defined inside a function():

  • CMAKE_CURRENT_FUNCTION

  • CMAKE_CURRENT_FUNCTION_LIST_DIR

  • CMAKE_CURRENT_FUNCTION_LIST_FILE

  • CMAKE_CURRENT_FUNCTION_LIST_LINE

• The CMAKE_CUDA_RUNTIME_LIBRARY variable and CUDA_RUNTIME_LIBRARY target property were introduced to select the CUDA runtime library used when linking targets that use CUDA.

• The CMAKE_FIND_DEBUG_MODE variable was introduced to print extra find_* call information during the cmake run to standard error. Output is designed for human consumption and not for parsing.

• The CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS variable now takes its initial value from the CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS environment variable if no explicit configuration is given.

• The CMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER_LAUNCHER variable, if not set explicitly, now takes its initial value from the CMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER_LAUNCHER environment variable.

• The CMAKE_MESSAGE_LOG_LEVEL variable can now be used to persist a log level between CMake runs, unlike the --log-level command line option which only applies to that particular run.

• The CMAKE_XCODE_SCHEME_ENVIRONMENT variable was added to initialize the XCODE_SCHEME_ENVIRONMENT target property.

• The CMAKE_XCODE_SCHEME_WORKING_DIRECTORY variable and associated XCODE_SCHEME_WORKING_DIRECTORY target property were added to tell the Xcode generator to set the value of the Custom Working Directory schema option.

Properties

• The AIX_EXPORT_ALL_SYMBOLS target property and associated CMAKE_AIX_EXPORT_ALL_SYMBOLS variable were created to optionally explicitly disable automatic export of symbols from shared libraries on AIX.

• The DEPRECATION target property was added to mark a target as deprecated. If a linked target is marked as deprecated, a warning with the deprecation message is issued at generate time.

• The INSTALL_NAME_DIR target property now supports generator expressions. In particular, the $<INSTALL_PREFIX> generator expression can be used to set the directory relative to the install-time prefix.

• Target properties MACHO_COMPATIBILITY_VERSION and MACHO_CURRENT_VERSION were added to set the compatibility_version and curent_version, respectively, for Mach-O binaries. For backwards compatibility, if these properties are not set, SOVERSION and VERSION are used respectively as fallbacks.

• The VS_DOTNET_DOCUMENTATION_FILE target property was added to tell Visual Studio Generators to generate a DocumentationFile reference in .csproj files.

Modules

• The ExternalProject module ExternalProject_Add() command gained a GIT_SUBMODULES_RECURSE option to specify whether Git submodules should be updated recursively. The default is on to preserve existing behavior.

• The FindCUDAToolkit module was added to find the CUDA Toolkit without enabling CUDA as a language.

• The FindCURL module learned to find CURL using the CURLConfig.cmake package configuration file generated by CURL's cmake buildsystem. It also gained a new CURL_NO_CURL_CMAKE option to disable this behavior.

• The FindFLEX module's FLEX_TARGET command now runs flex with CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR as the working directory. See policy CMP0098.

• The FindLibArchive module now provides an imported target for libarchive.

• The FindPython module has learned to find Python components in active virtual environments managed by conda.

• The FindPython3 and FindPython modules gained, respectively, variable Python3_SOABI and Python_SOABI giving the standard extension suffix for modules. Moreover, commands Python3_add_library() and Python_add_library() gained the option WITH_SOABI to prefix the library suffix with the value of SOABI.

• The FindLibXml2 module now provides an imported target for the xmllint executable.

Autogen

• AUTOMOC and AUTOUIC learned to process headers with a .hh extension. See policy CMP0100.

CTest

• The CTEST_CONFIGURATION_TYPE variable is now set from the command line when ctest(1) is invoked with -C <cfg>.

• The ctest(1) tool gained support for Dr. Memory to run memcheck runs.

• The ctest(1) tool gained a --no-tests=<[error|ignore]> option to explicitly set and unify the behavior between direct invocation and script mode if no tests were found.

• The ctest(1) tool gained a --repeat <mode>:<n> option to specify conditions in which to repeat tests. This generalizes the existing --repeat-until-fail <n> option to add modes for until-pass and after-timeout.

• The ctest_test() command gained a REPEAT <mode>:<n> option to specify conditions in which to repeat tests.

CPack

• The CPack DragNDrop Generator learned to use the CPACK_DMG_<component>_FILE_NAME variable to set a custom filename when packaging components into their own DMGs.

• The CPack DragNDrop Generator learned to handle RTF formatted license files. When CPACK_DMG_SLA_DIR variable is set, <language>.license.rtf is considered, but only as a fallback when the plaintext (.txt) file is not found in order to maintain backwards compatibility.

• The CPack NSIS Generator gained a new variable CPACK_NSIS_MUI_HEADERIMAGE to set the header image. To not break existing setups, it still defaults to CPACK_PACKAGE_ICON if the new variable is not set.

• The CPack NSIS Generator now supports CPACK_NSIS_UNINSTALL_NAME. This can be used to specify the name of the Uninstall program.

• The CPack NSIS Generator now supports CPACK_NSIS_WELCOME_TITLE and CPACK_NSIS_WELCOME_TITLE_3LINES. These can be used to specify the welcome page title and display it in 3 lines.

• The CPack NSIS Generator now supports CPACK_NSIS_FINISH_TITLE and CPACK_NSIS_FINISH_TITLE_3LINES. These can be used to specify the finish page title and display it in 3 lines.

• The CPack productbuild Generator gained support for a CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_BACKGROUND variable to specify a background image for the macOS installer.

Other

• ccmake(1) now displays cache values using colors based on the entry type if the terminal supports color.

• ccmake(1) now displays messages and a progress bar during configure and generate. It will keep the output displayed if any errors or warnings occurred.

Deprecated and Removed Features

• An explicit deprecation diagnostic was added for policy CMP0068 and policy CMP0069 (CMP0067 and below were already deprecated). The cmake-policies(7) manual explains that the OLD behaviors of all policies are deprecated and that projects should port to the NEW behaviors.

• The CPack PackageMaker generator has been deprecated because Xcode no longer distributes the PackageMaker tools. The undocumented OSXX11 generator has also been deprecated.

• The cmake(1) command-line -E remove and -E remove_directory tools are deprecated in favor of the new -E rm tool. The older tools always returned 0 if a named path did not exist even without the force option and cannot be fixed without breaking compatibility, and so have been superseded.

• The CPack NSIS Generator now requires NSIS 3.0 or later.

Other Changes

• The file API index file now emits a multiConfig flag specifying whether or not the generator supports multiple output configurations.

• Target link properties INTERFACE_LINK_OPTIONS, INTERFACE_LINK_DIRECTORIES and INTERFACE_LINK_DEPENDS are now transitive over private dependencies on static libraries. See policy CMP0099.

• When using MinGW tools, the find_library() command no longer finds .dll files by default. Instead, it expects .dll.a import libraries to be available.

• The MinGW Makefiles generator no longer issues an error if sh.exe is present in the environment's PATH.

• The Ninja generator now prefers the first ninja build tool to appear in the PATH no matter whether it is called ninja-build, ninja, or samu. Previously the first of those names to appear anywhere in the PATH would be preferred.

• With SDCC the sdar tool is now preferred over sdcclib as librarian. The latter was deprecated by SDCC 3.2.0 and removed in SDCC 3.8.6.

• With SDCC the default flags no longer include any target-specific flags. Previously the default flags were hard-coded for 8051.

• The CMAKE_VS_GLOBALS variable value now applies during compiler identification and in targets created by the add_custom_target() command.

• The Xcode generator no longer hard-codes -Wmost, -Wno-four-char-constants, and -Wno-unknown-pragmas warning flags.

Updates

Changes made since CMake 3.17.0 include the following.

3.17.1

• CMake 3.17.0 updated the CPack NSIS Generator with changes that require NSIS 3.0 or later. CMake 3.17.1 now enforces the use of a sufficiently new version.

3.17.3

• Selection of the Objective C or C++ compiler now considers the CC or CXX environment variable if the OBJC or OBJCXX environment variable is not set.

• The FindPkgConfig module now extracts include directories prefixed with -isystem into the *_INCLUDE_DIRS variables and INTERFACE_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES target properties. Previously they would be places in *_CFLAGS_OTHER variables and INTERFACE_COMPILE_OPTIONS target properties.

3.17.5

• The default value of CMAKE_AUTOMOC_PATH_PREFIX was changed to OFF because this feature can break existing projects that have identically named header files in different include directories. This restores compatibility with behavior of CMake 3.15 and below. The default was also changed to OFF in 3.16.9.