CMake 3.10 Release Notes¶
Contents
Changes made since CMake 3.9 include the following.
New Features¶
Platforms¶
- The flang Fortran compiler is now supported, with compiler id Flang.
- A new minimal platform file for Midipixwas added.
- Support for the MSVC ARM64 architecture was added. Visual Studio 2017 Update 4 and above offer an ARM64 toolchain.
- Support for the IAR ARM Compiler was improved.
Generators¶
- The Makefile Generators and the Ninjagenerator learned to add compiler launcher tools like ccache along with the compiler for theCUDAlanguage (CandCXXwere supported previously). See theCMAKE_<LANG>_COMPILER_LAUNCHERvariable and<LANG>_COMPILER_LAUNCHERtarget property for details.
- The CodeBlocksextra generator learned to optionally exclude files from outside the project root directory from the generated project. See theCMAKE_CODEBLOCKS_EXCLUDE_EXTERNAL_FILESvariable.
Commands¶
- The cmake_host_system_information()command learned more keys to get information about the processor capabilities and the host OS version.
- The configure_file()command learned to support indented# cmakedefineand# cmakedefine01. Spaces and/or tabs between the#character and thecmakedefine/cmakedefine01words are now understood and preserved in the output.
- The execute_process()command gained aRESULTS_VARIABLEoption to collect a list of results from all children in a pipeline of processes when multipleCOMMANDarguments are given.
- The include_guard()command was introduced to allow guarding CMake scripts from being included more than once. The command supportsDIRECTORYandGLOBALoptions to adjust the corresponding include guard scope. If no options given, include guard is similar to basic variable-based check.
- The string()command learned a newPREPENDsubcommand.
- The string(TIMESTAMP)command now supports%Afor full weekday name and%Bfor full month name.
Variables¶
- A CMAKE_DIRECTORY_LABELSvariable was added to specify labels for all tests in a directory.
Properties¶
- A <LANG>_CPPCHECKtarget property and supportingCMAKE_<LANG>_CPPCHECKvariable were introduced to tell the Makefile Generators and theNinjagenerator to runcppcheckwith the compiler forCandCXXlanguages.
- A LABELSdirectory property was added to specify labels for all targets and tests in a directory.
- A TEST_INCLUDE_FILESdirectory property was added to list any number of files to be included when running tests withctest(1). This generalizes theTEST_INCLUDE_FILEproperty.
- The VS_DOTNET_REFERENCEPROP_<refname>_TAG_<tagname>target property was added to support custom XML tags for reference assemblies in C# targets.
- Source file properties VS_SHADER_OUTPUT_HEADER_FILEandVS_SHADER_VARIABLE_NAMEhave been added to specify more details of.hlslsources with Visual Studio Generators.
Modules¶
- The FindCursesmodule gained aCURSES_NEED_WIDEoption to request the wide-character variant.
- The FindEXPATmodule now provides imported targets.
- The FindFreetypemodule now provides imported targets.
- FindMPIgained a number of new features, including:- Language-specific components have been added to the module.
- Many more MPI environments are now supported.
- The environmental support for Fortran has been improved.
- A user now has fine-grained control over the MPI selection process, including passing custom parameters to the MPI compiler.
- The version of the implemented MPI standard is now being exposed.
- MPI-2 C++ bindings can now be detected and also suppressed if so desired.
- The available Fortran bindings are now being detected and verified.
- Various MPI-3 information can be requested, including the library version and Fortran capabilities of the individual bindings.
- Statically linked MPI implementations are supported.
 
- A FindOpenACCmodule was added to detect compiler support for OpenACC. Currently only supports PGI, GNU and Cray compilers.
- The FindOpenGLmodule gained support for GLVND on Linux.
- The FindOpenMPmodule gained support for language-specific components.
- A FindPatchmodule was added to find thepatchcommand-line executable.
- The FindProtobufmoduleprotobuf_generate_cpp()command gained aDESCRIPTORSoption to generate descriptor files.
- The GoogleTestmodule gained a new commandgtest_discover_tests()implementing dynamic (build-time) test discovery. Unlike the source parsing approach, dynamic discovery executes the test (in ‘list available tests’ mode) at build time to discover tests. This is robust against unusual ways of labeling tests, provides much better support for advanced features such as parameterized tests, and does not require re-running CMake to discover added or removed tests within a test executable. Note that a breaking change was made in CMake 3.10.3 to address an ambiguity of theTIMEOUTkeyword (see 3.10.3).
- The InstallRequiredSystemLibrariesmodule gained support for installing Intel compiler runtimes.
Autogen¶
- When using AUTOMOCorAUTOUICwith a multi configuration generator (e.g.Xcode), included*.moc,moc_*.cppandui_*.hfiles are generated in<AUTOGEN_BUILD_DIR>/include_<CONFIG>instead of<AUTOGEN_BUILD_DIR>/include.
- When using AUTOMOCorAUTOUIC, source files that areGENERATEDwill be processed as well. They were ignored byAUTOMOCandAUTOUICin earlier releases. See policyCMP0071.
- When using AUTOMOC, CMake searches for the stringsQ_OBJECT,Q_GADGETorQ_NAMESPACEin a source file to determine if it needs to bemocprocessed. The newCMAKE_AUTOMOC_MACRO_NAMESvariable andAUTOMOC_MACRO_NAMEStarget property may be set to register additional strings (macro names) to search for.
- When using AUTOMOC, the newCMAKE_AUTOMOC_COMPILER_PREDEFINESvariable andAUTOMOC_COMPILER_PREDEFINEStarget property specify whether to enable or disable the generation of the compiler pre definitions filemoc_predefs.h.
CTest¶
- A CTEST_LABELS_FOR_SUBPROJECTSCTest module variable and CTest script variable were added to specify a list of labels that should be treated as subprojects by CDash. To use this value in both the CTest module and the ctest command line Dashboard Client mode (e.g.ctest -S) set it in theCTestConfig.cmakeconfig file.
CPack¶
- A CPack FreeBSD Generatorwas added for FreeBSDpkg(8).
- The CPack DEB Generatorwas enabled on Windows. While not fully featured (due to the lack of external UNIX tools) this will allow building basic cross-platform Debian packages.
- The CPack DEB Generatorlearned to set package release version inVersioninfo property. See theCPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_RELEASEvariable.
- The CPack DEB Generatorlearned more strict package version checking that complies with Debian rules.
- The CPackIFWmodulecpack_ifw_configure_component()andcpack_ifw_configure_component_group()commands gained a newREPLACESandCHECKABLEoptions.
- The CPack IFW Generatorgained newCPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_FILE_EXTENSIONvariable to customize target binary format.
- The CPack IFW Generatorgained newCPACK_IFW_REPOSITORIES_DIRECTORIESvariable to specify additional repositories dirs that will be used to resolve and repack dependent components. This feature is only available when using QtIFW 3.1 or later.
- The CPack RPM GeneratorandCPack DEB Generatorlearned to set the package epoch version. SeeCPACK_RPM_PACKAGE_EPOCHandCPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_EPOCHvariables.
Deprecated and Removed Features¶
- Support for building CMake itself with C++98 compilers was dropped. CMake is now implemented using C++11.
- Support for building CMake on HP-UX has been dropped pending better support for C++11 and a port of libuv. See CMake Issue 17137. Use CMake 3.9 or lower instead for HP-UX support.
Other Changes¶
- On FreeBSD the C++ compiler named c++is now the preferred default.
- The file(GENERATE)command now interprets relative paths given to itsOUTPUTandINPUTarguments with respect to the caller’s current binary and source directories, respectively. See policyCMP0070.
- The get_filename_component()PROGRAMmode semantics have been revised to not tolerate unquoted spaces in the path to the program while also accepting arguments. While technically incompatible with the old behavior, it is expected that behavior under typical use cases with properly-quoted command-lines has not changed.
Updates¶
Changes made since CMake 3.10.0 include the following.
3.10.1¶
- The cmake-server(7)codemodelresponsecrossReferencesfield added by 3.10.0 has been dropped due to excessive memory usage. Another approach will be needed to provide backtrace information.
3.10.3¶
- CMake 3.10.1 added a TIMEOUToption togtest_discover_tests()from theGoogleTestmodule. That keyword clashed with theTIMEOUTtest property, which is one of the common properties that would be set with the command’sPROPERTIESkeyword, usually leading to legal but unintended behavior. The keyword was changed toDISCOVERY_TIMEOUTin CMake 3.10.3 to address this problem. The ambiguous behavior of thegtest_discover_tests()command’sTIMEOUTkeyword in 3.10.1 and 3.10.2 has not been preserved.
