CMake 3.23 Release Notes

Changes made since CMake 3.22 include the following.

New Features

Presets

• cmake-presets(7) files now support schema version 4.

• cmake-presets(7) files now have an optional include field, which allows the files to include other files.

• cmake-presets(7) files now support a ${fileDir} macro, which contains the directory containing the preset file.

• cmake-presets(7) gained support for specifying the resolvePackageReferences command line option in a build preset to control restoration behavior of package references from external package managers. Currently this is only supported by the Visual Studio generator to support restoring packages from NuGet. Other generators ignore this option.

Generators

• The Visual Studio Generators for VS 2019 and above learned to support .NET SDK-style project files (.csproj) for C# projects. See the DOTNET_SDK target property and corresponding CMAKE_DOTNET_SDK variable. add_custom_command() is not yet supported in .NET SDK-style projects.

• The Visual Studio Generators for VS 2017 and above learned to use portable instances of Visual Studio not known to the VS installer. See the CMAKE_GENERATOR_INSTANCE variable.

Command-Line

• The cmake(1) --build command, when used with Visual Studio Generators on projects that set the VS_PACKAGE_REFERENCES target property, now automatically restores package references from NuGet. The cache variable CMAKE_VS_NUGET_PACKAGE_RESTORE may be set to toggle this behavior in a build tree. Use the --resolve-package-references command-line option to control the behavior on one invocation.

• The cmake(1) command line tool gained a --debug-find-pkg option to enable debug messages under specific find_package() calls.

• The cmake(1) command line tool gained a --debug-find-var option to enable debug messages for find_* calls that use specific result variables.

Compilers

• The IBM Open XL C/C++ compiler, based on LLVM, is now supported with compiler id IBMClang.

• The MCST LCC compiler is now supported with compiler id LCC. See policy CMP0129.

File-Based API

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 version field has been updated to 2.4.

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 directory object installers field gained a new fileSet installer type.

Commands

• The define_property() command gained a new INITIALIZE_FROM_VARIABLE option to cause a target property to be initialized from a variable when a target is created.

• The install(TARGETS) command gained a new FILE_SET argument, which can be used to install header file sets associated with a target.

• The string(TIMESTAMP) and file(TIMESTAMP) commands now support the %f specifier for microseconds.

• The target_sources() command gained a new FILE_SET mode, which can be used to add headers as header-only source files of a target.

Variables

• The CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES variable and associated CUDA_ARCHITECTURES target property now support the all, and all-major values for CUDA toolkit 7.0+.

• The CMAKE_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH and CMAKE_SYSTEM_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH variables were added to tell the find_package(), find_program(), find_library(), find_path(), and find_file() commands to ignore specified prefixes.

• The CMAKE_LINK_LIBRARIES_ONLY_TARGETS variable and corresponding LINK_LIBRARIES_ONLY_TARGETS target property were added to optionally require that all link items that can be target names are actually names of existing targets.

Properties

• The HEADER_SETS and INTERFACE_HEADER_SETS read-only target properties were added to list header sets associated with a target.

• The HEADER_SET and HEADER_SET_<NAME> target properties were added to list files in the default header set and named header sets, respectively.

• The HEADER_DIRS and HEADER_DIRS_<NAME> target properties were added to specify the base directories of the default header set and named header sets, respectively.

• The IMPORTED_NO_SYSTEM target property was added to specify that an Imported Target should not be treated as a system library (i.e. its include directories are not automatically SYSTEM).

• The XCODE_EMBED_PLUGINS target property was added to tell the Xcode generator what targets to put in the Embed PlugIns build phase.

• The XCODE_SCHEME_ENABLE_GPU_FRAME_CAPTURE_MODE target property and supporting CMAKE_XCODE_SCHEME_ENABLE_GPU_FRAME_CAPTURE_MODE variable were added to tell the Xcode generator to enable specifying the Xcode scheme option property GPU Frame Capture.

Modules

• The CheckPIESupported module now supports the OBJC, OBJCXX, CUDA, and HIP languages. It also now honors CMAKE_SYSROOT and CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT.

• The ExternalProject module's ExternalProject_Add() command gained support for a USES_TERMINAL_PATCH option to give the patch step exclusive terminal access.

• The FindCUDAToolkit module now provides a target for libcufft_static_nocallback, if found.

• The FindGLUT module now provides the GLUT_INCLUDE_DIRS result variable to conform with naming conventions documented in the cmake-developer(7) manual. This supersedes the legacy GLUT_INCLUDE_DIR variable.

• The FindGTest module now provides a target for GMock, if found.

• The FindVulkan module now provides a Vulkan_VERSION result variable reporting the version number.

CTest

• ctest(1) gained a new CTEST_SUBMIT_INACTIVITY_TIMEOUT variable, which can be used to specify a timeout for submission inactivity.

CPack

• The CPack productbuild Generator gained the new CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_DOMAINS, CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_DOMAINS_ANYWHERE, CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_DOMAINS_USER, and CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_DOMAINS_ROOT variables for adding the domains element to the Distribution XML. With these variables, it is now possible to install products to the user's home directory without requiring administrative privileges.

• The CPack productbuild Generator gained a new variable, CPACK_PRODUCTBUILD_IDENTIFIER, used to customize the unique product identifier associated with the product.

• The CPack.distribution.dist.in template used by the CPack productbuild Generator and CPack PackageMaker generator was updated to use a new CPACK_APPLE_PKG_INSTALLER_CONTENT variable for its main content. This replaced the previously undocumented and now deprecated CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES variable.

• The CPack IFW Generator gained the new CPACK_IFW_ARCHIVE_FORMAT and CPACK_IFW_ARCHIVE_COMPRESSION variables for setting the format used when packaging new component data archives, and choosing the compression level used. These features are available for QtIFW 4.2 and newer.

• The CPack IFW Generator gained new CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_DISABLE_COMMAND_LINE_INTERFACE variable to prevent the user from passing any consumer command to the installer, like install, update, and remove. This feature is available for QtIFW 4.0 and newer.

• The CPack IFW Generator gained the new CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_PRODUCT_IMAGES variable for adding a list of images to be shown on the PerformInstallationPage. This feature is available for QtIFW 4.0 and newer.

• The CPack IFW Generator gained the new CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_RUN_PROGRAM, CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_RUN_PROGRAM_ARGUMENTS, and CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_RUN_PROGRAM_DESCRIPTION variables for executing a command after the installer is done if the user accepts the action. This feature is available for QtIFW 4.0 and newer.

• The CPack IFW Generator gained the new CPACK_IFW_PACKAGE_SIGNING_IDENTITY variable for specifying a code signing identity to be used for signing the generated app bundle. This feature is available on macOS only, and for QtIFW 3.0 and newer.

• The CPack WIX Generator gained a new variable, CPACK_WIX_SKIP_WIX_UI_EXTENSION, to skip the inclusion of WixUIExtensions.

Deprecated and Removed Features

• cmake(1) now warns when multiple source paths are specified, as in cmake -S src1 src2. This has never been officially documented or supported, but older versions accidentally accepted multiple source paths and used the last path specified. Update scripts to avoid passing multiple source path arguments.

• The cpack(1) undocumented OSXX11 generator has been removed.

• The previously undocumented CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES variable used in the CPack.distribution.dist.in template has been replaced by a new CPACK_APPLE_PKG_INSTALLER_CONTENT variable. This only affects projects that were providing their own custom CPack.distribution.dist.in template file, but still relied on CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES being set. Those custom template files should be updated to use CPACK_APPLE_PKG_INSTALLER_CONTENT instead, or to fully define all the template file's contents without relying on substitution of either variable.

Other Changes

• The CPack DragNDrop Generator no longer attaches CPACK_RESOURCE_FILE_LICENSE as the license agreement in the generated .dmg unless explicitly activated by a CPACK_DMG_SLA_USE_RESOURCE_FILE_LICENSE option. In CMake projects, the CPack module enables the option by default for compatibility.

• CUDA targets may now enable both CUDA_SEPARABLE_COMPILATION and CUDA_PTX_COMPILATION.

• CUDA compiler detection now:

  • issues an error in all cases when it's unable to compute the default architecture(s) if required (see CMP0104),

  • handles OFF for CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES on Clang,

  • supports the theoretical case of multiple default architectures, and

  • tries to detect invalid architectures and issue an error.

• CUDA with Clang now implements policy CMP0105 and the $<DEVICE_LINK:...> and $<HOST_LINK:...> generator expressions.

• The define_property() command's BRIEF_DOCS and FULL_DOCS arguments are now optional.

• ccmake(1) may now be enabled on Windows when building CMake from source. This is experimental, and so is not included in official distributions.

Updates

Changes made since CMake 3.23.0 include the following.

3.23.1

• The target_sources() FILE_SET feature added in CMake 3.23.0 does not yet place header files properly in Apple FRAMEWORK targets. Pending further work in a future version of CMake, it is now an error to add a FILE_SET of type HEADERS to such targets on Apple platforms.

• The HEADER_SETS and INTERFACE_HEADER_SETS target properties added in CMake 3.23.0 are now read-only records of the header sets created by the target_sources() command.

3.23.2

• The CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES variable used in the CPack.distribution.dist.in template file was replaced by a new CPACK_APPLE_PKG_INSTALLER_CONTENT variable in CMake 3.23.0. This broke projects that provided their own template file but still expected the CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES variable to be defined. The old CPACK_PACKAGEMAKER_CHOICES variable is now also set to the same content as it was before, but it is formally deprecated.

3.23.3, 3.23.4, 3.23.5

• These versions made no changes to documented features or interfaces. Some implementation updates were made to support ecosystem changes and/or fix regressions.