CMake 3.30 Release Notes

Changes made since CMake 3.29 include the following.

New Features

Presets

• cmake-presets(7) files now support schema version 9. include fields now expand all macros except $env{} and preset-specific macros, i.e., those derived from the fields inside a preset's definition.

File-Based API

• The cmake-file-api(7) "cmakeFiles" version 1 object's version field has been updated to 1.1. It gained a globsDependent field to report file(GLOB) calls using CONFIGURE_DEPENDS.

Generators

• Visual Studio Generators now add UseDebugLibraries indicators to .vcxproj files to denote which configurations are debug configurations. See policy CMP0162.

Languages

• The Compile Features functionality now implements support for the cxx_std_26 and cuda_std_26 meta-features to indicate that the compiler mode must be at least C++26. These meta-features were first documented by CMake 3.25, but were not fully implemented.

Commands

• The add_library() command, on platforms that do not support shared libraries, now rejects creation of shared libraries instead of automatically converting them to static libraries. See policy CMP0164.

• The enable_language() command now fails with an error if it is called before the first project() call. See policy CMP0165.

• The file(DOWNLOAD) and file(UPLOAD) commands gained a TLS_VERSION <min> option to specify the minimum TLS version for connections to https:// URLs.

Variables

• The CMAKE_<LANG>_STANDARD_LATEST variable was added to describe the latest <LANG> language standard CMake supports for the selected compiler.

• The CMAKE_TLS_VERIFY environment variable was added as a fallback to the existing CMAKE_TLS_VERIFY variable. It specifies whether to verify the server certificate for https:// URLs by default.

• The CMAKE_TLS_VERSION variable and CMAKE_TLS_VERSION environment variable were added to specify a default minimum TLS version for connections to https:// URLs by the file(DOWNLOAD) and file(UPLOAD) commands.

• The CMAKE_VS_USE_DEBUG_LIBRARIES variable and corresponding VS_USE_DEBUG_LIBRARIES target property were added to explicitly control UseDebugLibraries indicators in .vcxproj files.

Properties

• The GENERATED source file property is now visible in all directories. See policy CMP0163. Policy CMP0118's documentation has been revised to describe its actual effects.

• The PROPAGATE_TOP_LEVEL_INCLUDES_TO_TRY_COMPILE global property can be used to propagate CMAKE_PROJECT_TOP_LEVEL_INCLUDES into try_compile() calls that use the whole-project signature. This is primarily intended as a way for dependency providers to be enabled in such try_compile() calls.

• A VS_FILTER_PROPS target property was added to tell Visual Studio Generators to use a custom MSBuild filter .props file.

Modules

• The ExternalProject module's ExternalProject_Add() command gained a TLS_VERSION <min> option, and support for the CMAKE_TLS_VERSION variable and CMAKE_TLS_VERSION environment variable, to specify the minimum TLS version for connections to https:// URLs.

• The FindBacktrace module now provides an imported target.

• The FindBLAS and FindLAPACK modules gained support for libblastrampoline.

• The FindCUDAToolkit module now provides a target for libnvfatbin and libnvfatbin_static, if found.

• The FindCUDAToolkit module now searches the CMAKE_CUDA_COMPILER variable and the CUDACXX environment variable even when the CUDA language isn't enabled.

• The FindOpenMP module gained an OpenMP_RUNTIME_MSVC option to control the OpenMP runtime used with MSVC.

• The FindPython and FindPython3 modules gained support for the free threaded Python version.

• The FindPython, FindPython2, and FindPython3 modules, on Windows, now offer better support for the Python debug variant:

  • new variables:

    • Python_EXECUTABLE_DEBUG

    • Python_INTERPRETER

    • Python_DEBUG_POSTFIX

  • new targets:

    • Python::InterpreterDebug

    • Python::InterpreterMultiConfig

  The python_add_library() command now manages the DEBUG_POSTFIX target property based on the value of the Python_DEBUG_POSTFIX variable.

Generator Expressions

• The <LANG>_COMPILER_FRONTEND_VARIANT family of generator expressions were added to access the value of the associated CMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER_FRONTEND_VARIANT variables.

• Link features, as used with the LINK_LIBRARY generator expression, gained the ability to have attributes that describe their behavior by specifying the CMAKE_LINK_LIBRARY_<FEATURE>_ATTRIBUTES or CMAKE_<LANG>_LINK_LIBRARY_<FEATURE>_ATTRIBUTES variables.

• The QUOTE generator expression was added to evaluate to ".

• The TARGET_PROPERTY generator expression learned to evaluate custom transitive properties defined by new TRANSITIVE_COMPILE_PROPERTIES and TRANSITIVE_LINK_PROPERTIES target properties.

• The TARGET_PROPERTY generator expression now evaluates target properties INTERFACE_LINK_OPTIONS, INTERFACE_LINK_DIRECTORIES, and INTERFACE_LINK_DEPENDS correctly by following private dependencies of static libraries. See policy CMP0166.

CTest

• The ctest_submit() command and ctest -T Submit step gained TLSVersion and TLSVerify options to control negotiation with https:// URLs. See the CTEST_TLS_VERSION and CTEST_TLS_VERIFY variables.

CPack

• The CPack Inno Setup Generator is now available on non-Windows hosts.

• The CPack NuGet Generator gained the CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_README, CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_REPOSITORY_URL, CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_REPOSITORY_TYPE, CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_REPOSITORY_BRANCH, and CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_REPOSITORY_COMMIT variables.

• The CPack NuGet Generator can now generate dependency groups for framework-specific dependencies. The CPACK_NUGET_PACKAGE_TFMS variable was added to specify a list of target framework monikers (TFMs) for which groups should be generated.

• The CPack WIX Generator gained support for WiX Toolset v4. See the CPACK_WIX_VERSION variable.

Deprecated and Removed Features

• The FindBoost module has been removed by policy CMP0167. Port projects to upstream Boost's BoostConfig.cmake package configuration file, for which find_package(Boost) now searches.

• Calling FetchContent_Populate() with just the name of a dependency is now deprecated. Projects should call FetchContent_MakeAvailable() instead. See policy CMP0169. Calling FetchContent_Populate() with full population details rather than just a dependency name remains fully supported.

• The Visual Studio 9 2008 generator has been removed.

Other Changes

• The precompiled Windows .msi installers provided on cmake.org, when performing a fresh installation, now modify the system-wide PATH by default. When replacing an existing installation of 3.30 or later, the PATH modification preference is preserved by default.

• The official .zip source archive provided on cmake.org now uses LF newlines, instead of CRLF newlines, for consistency with modern conventions.

• The durations printed after "Configuring done" and "Generating done" messages now reflect time spent in generator-specific steps, and in a code model evaluation step at the beginning of generation that was not previously captured. Printed durations may appear longer than in previous versions of CMake, but are more accurate.

• FetchContent now prefers to populate content directly rather than using a separate sub-build. This may significantly improve configure times on some systems (Windows especially, but also on macOS when using the Xcode generator). cmake --fresh also forces the download, update, and patch steps of directly populated dependencies to be re-executed. Policy CMP0168 provides backward compatibility for those projects that still rely on using a sub-build for content population.

• When FETCHCONTENT_FULLY_DISCONNECTED is set to true, FetchContent_MakeAvailable() and the single-argument form of FetchContent_Populate() require that the dependency's source directory has already been populated. CMake 3.29 and earlier did not check this requirement, but it is now enforced, subject to policy CMP0170.