[cmake-developers] Directory for debug symbols

Peter Kümmel syntheticpp at gmx.net
Thu Aug 23 06:03:47 EDT 2012


On 22.08.2012 15:13, Brad King wrote:
> On 08/22/2012 09:09 AM, Peter Kümmel wrote:
>> I wouldn't introduce a variable which will become obsolete, because
>> of the backward compatibility matra such a variable could never be removed.
>> Why not simply document that SYMBOL_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is currently only
>> supported for pdb files?
>
> That's *because* of compatibility.  It is easy to continue to support
> the PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY name in the future and simply ignore it if
> the future-named property is set.  If we make
> work only for PDB files now then in the future if we make it work for
> other toolchains then that will be a change in behavior for existing
> projects that expected it to work only for PDB files.
>

But this way you end up with a redundant solution: PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
and SYMBOL_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY do the same, PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY can't be
removed, and cmake gets polluted more and more.

I think at such points backward compatibility should be reconsidered,
because it enforce us to be compatible with cmake versions which simply
have some functionality not implemented.

On the other hand, updating cmake and absolutely nothing will break
in existing cmake files, not even workarounds, is also a selling point
for cmake.

Peter



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