Changes made since CMake 3.1 include the following.
- CMake learned to support unicode characters
encoded as UTF-8
on Windows. This was already supported on platforms whose
system APIs accept UTF-8 encoded strings.
Unicode characters may now be used in CMake code, paths to
source files, configured files such as .h.in files, and
other files read and written by CMake. Note that because CMake
interoperates with many other tools, there may still be some
limitations when using certain unicode characters.
- The add_custom_command() and add_custom_target()
commands learned a new BYPRODUCTS option to specify files
produced as side effects of the custom commands. These are not
outputs because they do not always have to be newer than inputs.
- The add_custom_command() and add_custom_target()
commands learned a new USES_TERMINAL option to request that
the command be given direct access to the terminal if possible.
The Ninja generator will places such commands in the
console pool. Build targets provided by CMake
that are meant for individual interactive use, such as install, are now
placed in this pool.
- A new continue() command was added that can be called inside loop
contexts to end the current iteration and start the next one at the top of
the loop block.
- The file(LOCK) subcommand was created to allow CMake
processes to synchronize through file and directory locks.
- The file(STRINGS) now supports UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE,
UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE as ENCODING options.
- The install(EXPORT) command now works with an absolute
DESTINATION even if targets in the export set are installed
with a destination or usage requirements
specified relative to the install prefix. The value of the
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable is hard-coded into the installed
export file as the base for relative references.
- The try_compile() command source file signature now honors
link flags (e.g. CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS) in the generated
test project. See policy CMP0056.
- The try_run() command learned to honor the LINK_LIBRARIES
option just as try_compile() already does.
- The file(GENERATE) command now generates the output file with
the same permissions as the input file if set.
- The file(GENERATE) command can now generate files which are
used as source files for buildsystem targets. Generated files
automatically get their GENERATED property set to TRUE.
- The CMAKE_MATCH_COUNT variable was introduced to record the
number of matches made in the last regular expression matched in an
if() command or a string() command.
- An ANDROID_API_MIN target property was introduced to
specify the minimum version to be targeted by the toolchain.
- A VS_SHADER_FLAGS source file property was added to specify
additional shader flags to .hlsl files, for the Visual Studio
generators.
- The ExternalData module learned to support
Custom Fetch Scripts.
This allows projects to specify custom .cmake scripts for
fetching data objects during the build.
- The ExternalProject module learned options to create
independent external project step targets that do not depend
on the builtin steps.
- The ExternalProject module ExternalProject_Add()
command learned a new CMAKE_CACHE_DEFAULT_ARGS option to
initialize cache values in the external project without setting
them on future builds.
- The ExternalProject module ExternalProject_Add()
command learned a new TEST_EXCLUDE_FROM_MAIN option to exclude
tests from the main build.
- The ExternalProject module ExternalProject_Add()
command learned a new UPDATE_DISCONNECTED option to avoid
automatically updating the source tree checkout from version control.
- The FindCUDA module learned about the cusolver
library in CUDA 7.0.
- The FindGit module learned to find the git command-line tool
that comes with GitHub for Windows installed in user home directories.
- A FindGSL module was introduced to find the
GNU Scientific Library.
- A FindIntl module was introduced to find the
Gettext libintl library.
- The FindLATEX module learned to support components.
- The FindMPI module learned to find MS-MPI on Windows.
- The FindOpenSSL module now reports crypto and ssl
libraries separately in OPENSSL_CRYPTO_LIBRARY and
OPENSSL_SSL_LIBRARY, respectively, to allow applications to
link to one without the other.
- The WriteCompilerDetectionHeader module learned to
create a define for portability of the cxx_thread_local feature.
The define expands to either the C++11 thread_local keyword, or a
pre-standardization compiler-specific equivalent, as appropriate.
- The WriteCompilerDetectionHeader module learned to create
multiple output files per compiler and per language, instead of creating
one large file.
- The cmake(1) -E tar command now supports creating
.xz-compressed archives with the J flag.
- The cmake(1) -E tar command learned a new
--files-from=<file> option to specify file names using
lines in a file to overcome command-line length limits.
- The cmake(1) -E tar command learned a new
--mtime=<date> option to specify the modification time
recorded in tarball entries.
- The Compile Features functionality
is now aware of features supported by more compilers, including:
- Apple Clang (AppleClang) for Xcode versions 4.4 though 6.1.
- GNU compiler versions 4.4 through 5.0 on UNIX and Apple (GNU).
- Microsoft Visual Studio (MSVC) for versions 2010 through 2015.
- Oracle SolarisStudio (SunPro) version 12.4.
- The AUTORCC feature now tracks files listed in .qrc files
as dependencies. If an input file to the rcc tool is changed, the tool
is automatically re-run.
- The break() command now rejects calls outside of a loop
context or that pass arguments to the command.
See policy CMP0055.
- Files written in the cmake-language(7), such as
CMakeLists.txt or *.cmake files, are now expected to be
encoded as UTF-8. If files are already ASCII, they will be
compatible. If files were in a different encoding, including
Latin 1, they will need to be converted.
- The FindOpenGL module no longer explicitly searches
for any dependency on X11 libraries with the FindX11
module. Such dependencies should not need to be explicit.
Applications using X11 APIs themselves should find and link
to X11 libraries explicitly.
- The implementation of CMake now relies on some C++ compiler features which
are not supported by some older compilers. As a result, those old compilers
can no longer be used to build CMake itself. CMake continues to be able to
generate Makefiles and project files for users of those old compilers
however. Compilers known to no longer be capable of building CMake are:
- Visual Studio 6 and 7.0 – superseded by VisualStudio 7.1 and newer.
- GCC 2.95 – superseded by GCC 3 and newer compilers.
- Borland compilers – superseded by other Windows compilers.
- Compaq compilers – superseded by other compilers.
- SGI compilers – IRIX was dropped as a host platform.
On Windows and OS X, commands supporting network communication
via https, such as file(DOWNLOAD),
file(UPLOAD), and ctest_submit(), now support
SSL/TLS even when CMake is not built against OpenSSL.
The Windows or OS X native SSL/TLS implementation is used by default.
OS-configured certificate authorities will be trusted automatically.
On other platforms, when CMake is built with OpenSSL, these
commands now search for OS-configured certificate authorities
in a few /etc paths to be trusted automatically.
On OS X with Makefile and Ninja generators, when a compiler is found
in /usr/bin it is now mapped to the corresponding compiler inside
the Xcode application folder, if any. This allows such build
trees to continue to work with their original compiler even when
xcode-select switches to a different Xcode installation.
The Visual Studio generators now write solution and project
files in UTF-8 instead of Windows-1252. Windows-1252 supported
Latin 1 languages such as those found in North and South America
and Western Europe. With UTF-8, additional languages are now
supported.
The Xcode generator no longer requires a value for
the CMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM variable to be located up front.
It now locates xcodebuild when needed at build time.
When building CMake itself using SolarisStudio 12, the default libCStd
standard library is not sufficient to build CMake. The SolarisStudio
distribution supports compiler options to use STLPort4 or libstdc++.
An appropriate option to select the standard library is now added
automatically when building CMake with SolarisStudio compilers.