[Plplot-devel] I plan to bump the minimum CMake version to 3.3.2 for everybody but Linux and Cygwin users

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

CMake 3.3.2 solves a fundamental and quite nasty CMake find regression
that occurred from 3.2.0 through 3.3.1. See threads entitled "[BUG]
HINTS not correctly handled in find_program" and "find_program HINTS
no longer preferred over PATH" on the cmake-devel list.  I think this
regression will not affect users who only have the system versions of
libraries to find in the standard locations, but more sophisticated
users who are perhaps building their own sets of libraries that are
not installed in system locations could run into find trouble.  So it
is not a showstopper regression, but still it makes any bug report
specified for that range of CMake versions somewhat suspect in case
the error reported is a result of this find regression so to simplify
my life I prefer not to support the above CMake version range at all.

I have not yet had a chance to try 3.3.2 because of some computer
troubles I am still diagnosing (although it is likely a new disk
drive, Debian install, and restore from backup is in my near future).
However, Greg does report success with CMake-3.3.2 on MinGW-w64/MSYS2
so I encourage everyone here to give it a try also.

The current status is our minimum version of CMake is 3.0.2 for Linux
and Cygwin and 3.2.3 for everybody else. Once my computer is healthy
again, and I can demonstrate no problems with CMake-3.3.2 on Linux, I
plan to change our build system to issue a warning message about using
any version of CMake from 3.2.0 through 3.3.1 if any of those versions
are detected for our Linux and Cygwin users.  For everybody else I
plan to avoid the issue altogether by bumping our minimum CMake
version to 3.3.2.

Let me know if there are any strong objections to this plan for
dealing with the above regression.

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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