Every CMake project requires a call to cmake_minimum_required
to set the minimally required CMake version. However, CMake gives no guidance what this version may be, and a lot of projects just take the current CMake version or whatever the IDE is proposing as default. This is a problem, because some platforms don't always provide the latest CMake version, and a lot of trial and error is needed before projects can be used.
cmake_min_version
is a script to determine the minimal working version of CMake for a given project. It does not do any magic, but just performs a binary search using a pool of CMake binaries and basically implements the "trial and error" in an efficient way.
Assume ~/projects/example
contains a project with a CMakeLists.txt
file. Then the following call determines the minimal working version of CMake:
❯ venv/bin/python cmake_min_version.py ~/projects/example
Found 94 CMake binaries from directory tools
[ 0%] CMake 3.9.2 ✔ works
[ 12%] CMake 3.2.2 ✘ error
CMakeLists.txt:7 (cmake_minimum_required)
[ 33%] CMake 3.8.0 ✔ works
[ 50%] CMake 3.7.1 ✘ error
CMakeLists.txt:16 (target_compile_features)
[ 80%] CMake 3.7.2 ✘ error
CMakeLists.txt:16 (target_compile_features)
[100%] Minimal working version: CMake 3.8.0
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)
As a result, ~/projects/example/CMakeLists.txt
could be adjusted to require CMake 3.8.0.
More options:
usage: cmake_min_version.py [-h] [--tools_directory DIR] [--full_search] [--error_details]
params [params ...]
Find the minimal required CMake version for a project.
positional arguments:
params parameters to pass to CMake
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--tools_directory DIR
path to the CMake binaries (default: "tools")
--full_search Searches using a top down approach instead of a binary search (default: False)
--error_details Print the full stderr output in case of an error (default: False)
The code requires some packages to be installed:
python3 -mvenv venv
venv/bin/pip3 install -r requirements.txt
The script cmake_downloader.py
takes care of downloading CMake binaries:
usage: cmake_downloader.py [-h] [--os {macos,linux,windows}] [--latest_release]
[--latest_patch] [--first_minor]
[--release_candidates] [--min_version MIN_VERSION]
[--max_version MAX_VERSION] [--tools_directory DIR]
Download CMake binaries.
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--os {macos,linux,windows}
OS to download CMake for (default: linux)
--latest_release only download the latest release (default: False)
--latest_patch only download the latest patch version for each release (default: False)
--first_minor only download the first minor version for each release (default: False)
--release_candidates also consider release candidates (default: False)
--min_version MIN_VERSION
only download versions greater or equal than MIN_VERSION
--max_version MAX_VERSION
only download versions less or equal than MAX_VERSION
--tools_directory DIR
path to the CMake binaries (default: "tools")
Example run:
❯ venv/bin/python3 cmake_downloader.py --latest_patch
Retrieving URLs...
100%|███████████████████████████████████████████| 32/32 [00:18<00:00, 1.71it/s]
Downloading CMake 2.8.12.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 40.5M/40.5M [00:12<00:00, 3.34MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.0.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 38.7M/38.7M [00:10<00:00, 3.90MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.1.3...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 28.6M/28.6M [00:07<00:00, 3.99MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.2.3...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 26.4M/26.4M [00:07<00:00, 3.52MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.3.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 21.3M/21.3M [00:06<00:00, 3.68MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.4.3...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 21.6M/21.6M [00:07<00:00, 3.07MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.5.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 21.8M/21.8M [00:06<00:00, 3.33MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.6.3...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 24.9M/24.9M [00:08<00:00, 2.92MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.7.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 25.1M/25.1M [00:09<00:00, 2.85MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.8.2...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 25.2M/25.2M [00:06<00:00, 3.95MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.9.6...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 25.5M/25.5M [00:07<00:00, 3.41MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.10.3...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 25.9M/25.9M [00:06<00:00, 3.93MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.11.4...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 26.1M/26.1M [00:06<00:00, 3.96MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.12.4...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 27.7M/27.7M [00:08<00:00, 3.44MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.13.5...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 30.6M/30.6M [00:08<00:00, 3.82MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.14.7...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 32.0M/32.0M [00:08<00:00, 4.04MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.15.7...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 33.2M/33.2M [00:10<00:00, 3.44MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.16.5...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 34.2M/34.2M [00:08<00:00, 4.11MB/s]
Downloading CMake 3.17.0...
100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 35.3M/35.3M [00:10<00:00, 3.67MB/s]
The script downloads and unpacks different versions of CMake into the tools
folder.
The code is licensed under the MIT License:
Copyright © 2020-2024 Niels Lohmann
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.