CMake 3.21 Release Notes

Changes made since CMake 3.20 include the following.

New Features

Presets

• cmake-presets(7) gained support for specifying the install prefix in a configure preset.

• cmake-presets(7) gained support for conditional enabling of presets.

• cmake-presets(7) gained support for a ${hostSystemName} macro.

• cmake-presets(7) gained support for omitting the generator and binaryDir fields.

Generators

• The Visual Studio 17 2022 generator was added.

• The Makefile Generators and the Ninja generator learned to add linker launcher tools along with the linker for C, CXX, OBJC, and OBJCXX languages. See the CMAKE_<LANG>_LINKER_LAUNCHER variable and <LANG>_LINKER_LAUNCHER target property for details.

Languages

• CMake learned to support HIP as a first-class language that can be enabled via the project() and enable_language() commands.

• C_STANDARD, OBJC_STANDARD, and the Compile Features functionality gained support for C17 and C23.

• Source file extensions .ixx and .cppm are now treated as C++.

Command-Line

• cmake(1) gained the --install-prefix command-line option to specify the location of the install prefix.

• cmake(1) gained the --toolchain command-line option to specify a toolchain file.

• cmake(1) -E capabilities output, for some generators, may now contain a supportedPlatforms field listing platforms known to be supported in CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM.

• Messages printed to a terminal now may be colored by message type.

Compilers

• The Fujitsu compiler is now supported using compiler id Fujitsu in traditional (Trad) mode, and compiler id FujitsuClang in Clang mode.

Platforms

• CMake now supports the MSYS runtime environment, much like CYGWIN.

File-Based API

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 version field has been updated to 2.3.

• The cmake-file-api(7) "codemodel" version 2 gained a new "directory" object containing directory-level information. This includes a list of installers generated by the install() command.

Commands

• The add_custom_command() command DEPFILE option:

  • may now use generator expressions,

  • is now supported by Visual Studio Generators for VS 2012 and above, and

  • is now supported by the Xcode generator.

• The add_custom_command(TARGET) command (for Build Events) gained support for resolving target-dependent generator expressions.

• The