Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?

[Craig Scott]

In my case, I work with a large code base that spans many projects with
various interdependencies. Some of that code base is quite old and would
benefit from updating to more modern CMake features, but some parts of the
code I'm not free to update. For these cases, I need to understand what
CMake version a particular feature was introduced before I can start using
it and also to put in place guards so that the updated project can still be
used with older projects that don't want or can't yet move to using a newer
CMake version. In an ideal world, everyone would just move to the latest
current CMake release and our projects could use whatever CMake features
they like, but that's not the reality we live in, for various reasons. ;)

On a personal level, I also write a blog which frequently covers CMake
features. I find I am always having to go check what version a particular
CMake feature was introduced so that I can highlight to my readers what
minimum CMake version they need to set. Like Vladimir, this usually
requires me to go through release notes or older versions of the CMake docs
to work out when that particular command, variable, module, etc. was added.
It would be great if the latest version's documentation always had that
information instead, it would be more reliable and certainly more
convenient.


On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Nils Gladitz 
wrote:

> On 04/25/2016 02:29 PM, Craig Scott wrote:
>
> I personally have found myself having to look up to his sort of version
> info a lot lately. It sounds like others do too. Perhaps a more
> sustainable approach would be to include the version details in the CMAKE
> docs themselves. For each command, module, variable, etc. it's
> documentation could state the version it was added. Some may warrant
> further info for version(s) where significant changes were made (eg
> keywords added to a command). Realistically, it would have to be done
> progressively and obviously with agreement from the Kitware side. It would
> only work if it became part of the change process whereby any new features
> or changes must include such version details. It would be interesting to
> hear what Kitware think of the idea. Any chance?
>
>
> I've also made use of such information from time to time but I think it
> has been the exception and it doesn't normally come up during my regular
> development workflow.
>
> I assume for most projects there is a single
> cmake_minimum_required(VERSION).
> Which means to see what is and what isn't available I only have to check
> that specific version's documentation.
>
> I am curious as to what kind of use case results in having to require
> cross-version information as provided by the compatibility matrix "a lot".
>
> Nils
>



-- 
Craig Scott
Melbourne, Australia
http://crascit.com
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Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?

[Vladimír Vondruš]

In my case I'm going through changelogs to see what is added in which version. 
For example I switched to the imported target workflow recently and need to 
keep backward compatibility all the way back to 2.8.12 (because Ubuntu LTS). 
There are a lot of features that were added later and are crucial (ALIAS 
targets, interface compatibility...), so I somehow need to add version-specific 
workarounds to make the projects working on 2.8.12.

The changelogs are pretty useful source of information, but it would be great 
to have the information directly in the docs to avoid trial and error.

Regards
mosra

__
> Od: Nils Gladitz <nilsglad...@gmail.com>
> Komu: Craig Scott <craig.sc...@crascit.com>, "Johannes Zarl-Zierl" 
> <johannes.zarl-zi...@jku.at>
> Datum: 25.04.2016 15:51
> Předmět: Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?
>
> CC: "cmake@cmake.org" <cmake@cmake.org>
>On 04/25/2016 02:29 PM, Craig Scott wrote:
>> I personally have found myself having to look up to his sort of 
>> version info a lot lately. It sounds like others do too. Perhaps a 
>> more sustainable approach would be to include the version details in 
>> the CMAKE docs themselves. For each command, module, variable, etc. 
>> it's documentation could state the version it was added. Some may 
>> warrant further info for version(s) where significant changes were 
>> made (eg keywords added to a command). Realistically, it would have to 
>> be done progressively and obviously with agreement from the Kitware 
>> side. It would only work if it became part of the change process 
>> whereby any new features or changes must include such version details. 
>> It would be interesting to hear what Kitware think of the idea. Any 
>> chance?
>
>I've also made use of such information from time to time but I think it 
>has been the exception and it doesn't normally come up during my regular 
>development workflow.
>
>I assume for most projects there is a single 
>cmake_minimum_required(VERSION).
>Which means to see what is and what isn't available I only have to check 
>that specific version's documentation.
>
>I am curious as to what kind of use case results in having to require 
>cross-version information as provided by the compatibility matrix "a lot".
>
>Nils
>
>
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>
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Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?

[Nils Gladitz]

On 04/25/2016 02:29 PM, Craig Scott wrote:
I personally have found myself having to look up to his sort of 
version info a lot lately. It sounds like others do too. Perhaps a 
more sustainable approach would be to include the version details in 
the CMAKE docs themselves. For each command, module, variable, etc. 
it's documentation could state the version it was added. Some may 
warrant further info for version(s) where significant changes were 
made (eg keywords added to a command). Realistically, it would have to 
be done progressively and obviously with agreement from the Kitware 
side. It would only work if it became part of the change process 
whereby any new features or changes must include such version details. 
It would be interesting to hear what Kitware think of the idea. Any 
chance?


I've also made use of such information from time to time but I think it 
has been the exception and it doesn't normally come up during my regular 
development workflow.


I assume for most projects there is a single 
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION).
Which means to see what is and what isn't available I only have to check 
that specific version's documentation.


I am curious as to what kind of use case results in having to require 
cross-version information as provided by the compatibility matrix "a lot".


Nils
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Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?

[Craig Scott]

I personally have found myself having to look up to his sort of version
info a lot lately. It sounds like others do too. Perhaps a more sustainable
approach would be to include the version details in the CMAKE docs
themselves. For each command, module, variable, etc. it's documentation
could state the version it was added. Some may warrant further info for
version(s) where significant changes were made (eg keywords added to a
command). Realistically, it would have to be done progressively and
obviously with agreement from the Kitware side. It would only work if it
became part of the change process whereby any new features or changes must
include such version details. It would be interesting to hear what Kitware
think of the idea. Any chance?



On Monday, 25 April 2016, Johannes Zarl-Zierl 
wrote:

> Hi Rob,
>
> I've stopped working on it when 3.0 came out. Since the whole thing was
> very
> much manual work (diff'ing documentation pages and checking whether some
> change was only better documentation or a real change in cmake), it was too
> much effort to continue long-term.
>
>   Johannes
>
> On Saturday 23 April 2016 10:32:15 Rob McDonald wrote:
> > Is there a continuation of the CMake version -- feature mapping table?
> >
> > https://cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Version_Compatibility_Matrix
> >
> > I found this to be quite useful, but need something that continues into
> 3.X.
> >
> > Rob
>
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-- 
Craig Scott
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http://crascit.com
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Re: [CMake] Version compatibility?

[Johannes Zarl-Zierl]

Hi Rob,

I've stopped working on it when 3.0 came out. Since the whole thing was very 
much manual work (diff'ing documentation pages and checking whether some 
change was only better documentation or a real change in cmake), it was too 
much effort to continue long-term.

  Johannes

On Saturday 23 April 2016 10:32:15 Rob McDonald wrote:
> Is there a continuation of the CMake version -- feature mapping table?
> 
> https://cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Version_Compatibility_Matrix
> 
> I found this to be quite useful, but need something that continues into 3.X.
> 
> Rob

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[CMake] Version compatibility?

[Rob McDonald]

Is there a continuation of the CMake version -- feature mapping table?

https://cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Version_Compatibility_Matrix

I found this to be quite useful, but need something that continues into 3.X.

Rob
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Re: [CMake] CMake Version Compatibility Matrix

[blessjah]

Hi,

Wouldn't it be better to have compability matrix generated automatically? 
Assuming we can automate process of building CMake and executing tests for any 
particular version we want, couldn't we create test suite checking if feature X 
works in version Y of CMake? This way we could maintain compability matrix by 
simply adding tests for new features?

Also, including annotations Available since in documentations would be great 
idea.

BR
Michal


On Mon, Mar 02, 2015 at 11:35:12AM +0100, Johannes Zarl wrote:
 Hi,
 
  Is there any chance that the version compatibility matrix will be
  updated for cmake 3.x features?
 
 Short answer: no.
 
 Longer answer:
 I've written and maintained the compatibility matrix before.
 
 The reasons I've stopped maintaining the page:
 (1) Distilling the changes between versions is quite some manual effort 
 (diffing 
 the help text and checking whether something some change reflects a change in 
 cmake or just a doc change) .
 (2) The documentation format changed in cmake 3, which would have meant a 
 very 
 big one-time effort toget the differences between 2.8 and 3.
 (3) I still believe that this could be done much better by including 
 annotations in the documentation itself (Available since:, Deprecated 
 in:).
 
 Hope that explains my reasons,
   Johannes
 
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Re: [CMake] CMake Version Compatibility Matrix

[Johannes Zarl]

Hi,

 Is there any chance that the version compatibility matrix will be
 updated for cmake 3.x features?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer:
I've written and maintained the compatibility matrix before.

The reasons I've stopped maintaining the page:
(1) Distilling the changes between versions is quite some manual effort 
(diffing 
the help text and checking whether something some change reflects a change in 
cmake or just a doc change) .
(2) The documentation format changed in cmake 3, which would have meant a very 
big one-time effort toget the differences between 2.8 and 3.
(3) I still believe that this could be done much better by including 
annotations in the documentation itself (Available since:, Deprecated 
in:).

Hope that explains my reasons,
  Johannes

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[CMake] CMake Version Compatibility Matrix

[Marcel Loose]

Hi all,

Is there any chance that the version compatibility matrix will be
updated for cmake 3.x features?

Best regards,
Marcel Loose.

attachment: loose.vcf-- 

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