CMake Experimental Features Guide

The following is a guide to CMake experimental features that are under development and not yet included in official documentation. See documentation on CMake Development for more information.

Features are gated behind CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_ variables which must be set to specific values in order to enable their gated behaviors. Note that the specific values will change over time to reinforce their experimental nature. When used, a warning will be generated to indicate that an experimental feature is in use and that the affected behavior in the project is not part of CMake's stability guarantees.

Export Package Dependencies

In order to activate support for this experimental feature, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXPORT_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES to
• value 1942b4fa-b2c5-4546-9385-83f254070067.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The install(EXPORT) and export(EXPORT) commands have experimental EXPORT_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES arguments to generate find_dependency calls automatically.
• Details of the calls may be configured using the export(SETUP) command's PACKAGE_DEPENDENCY argument.
• The package name associated with specific targets may be specified using the CMAKE_EXPORT_FIND_PACKAGE_NAME variable and/or

EXPORT_FIND_PACKAGE_NAME target property.

C++ import std support

In order to activate support for import std in C++23 and newer targets, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_CXX_IMPORT_STD to
• value 0e5b6991-d74f-4b3d-a41c-cf096e0b2508.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting. It must be set before the CXX toolchain is discovered by CMake, usually as part of a :command:`project` call.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The :prop_tgt:`CXX_MODULE_STD` target property and its initializing variable :variable:`CMAKE_CXX_MODULE_STD`.
• Targets with the property set to a true value and at least cxx_std_23 may use import std; in any scanned C++ source file.