[cmake-developers] [patch] Document -H and -B

Dave Gittins dave.gittins at gmail.com
Tue Jul 5 18:02:00 EDT 2016


I think we should add new normalised forms but still mention the deprecated
names in the docs.

You can't put the cat back in the bag - like it or not, those option names
seem quite widely used. Developers will join a project and see them in use.
Currently they will find no mention of them in docs but find something on
StackOverflow (which may or may not be accurate), and they will stay like
that even if new forms are available. That's what I observe in the field.

If you explain in docs that they are deprecated forms, those developers
will know what they actually do and that they are deprecated, and many will
replace with the new form.

I believe those are your choices basically; I am really hoping you choose
the latter!

Dave
On 6 Jul 2016 06:31, "Brad King" <brad.king at kitware.com> wrote:

On 07/05/2016 06:29 AM, Ruslan Baratov wrote:
> I don't see the point of introducing new options. Developers will still
> use -H/-B because it's backward compatible, well known and will work
> 100% because of internal CMake testing. That said if you want to improve
> the current behavior of -H/-B (like confusing with --help/no spaces
> between -H and <path-to-source-tree>) I can take a look. Otherwise I'm
> not interested (usually it means that the improvement will be abandoned).

The conflict with the plain `-H` help option is another reason to
keep these options private.  I've outlined what is an acceptable
path to offer public options for this workflow.  If anyone wants
to do that then great.  Otherwise the status quo will persist.

-Brad
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