We originally deprecated this module in commit v3.5.0-rc1~295^2
(CMakeForceCompiler: Deprecate this module and its macros, 2015-10-19).
Then a use case was found to still require the module so the deprecation
was reverted for CMake 3.5 by commit v3.5.0-rc3~4^2 (CMakeForceCompiler:
De-deprecate until more use cases have alternatives, 2016-02-17). Since
then `CMAKE_TRY_COMPILE_TARGET_TYPE` was introduced to provide an
alternative solution for that use case. Deprecate the module again.
Move all development release notes into a new version-specific document:
tail -q -n +3 Help/release/dev/* > Help/release/3.5.rst
git rm -- Help/release/dev/*
except the sample topic:
git checkout HEAD -- Help/release/dev/0-sample-topic.rst
Reference the new document from the release notes index document.
Add a title and intro sentence to the new document by hand.
This module was added by commit v2.6.0~1489 (...supporting embedded
compilers..., 2007-07-02) to avoid needing to build the compiler id
detection source on toolchains that need special flags or linker files
to produce executables. Since then CMake has learned other ways to
identify such compilers (e.g. passing vendor-specific version flags and
checking for vendor-specific banners in the output). Furthermore, CMake
now detects a lot more than just the compiler id during language
initialization in order to support things like <LANG>_STANDARD and
COMPILE_FEATURES. Therefore CMakeForceCompiler is no longer a viable
approach because it skips such detection.
One remaining challenge to support toolchains that require special
linker files is to build the test for a working compiler, compiler ABI
detection binary, and other try_compile cases. This will have to be
worked out as such cases are encountered.
Brad King