[cmake-developers] [CMake 0012563]: CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS should be removed from the documentation

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

The following issue has been SUBMITTED. 
====================================================================== 
http://public.kitware.com/Bug/view.php?id=12563 
====================================================================== 
Reported By:                Robert Pollak
Assigned To:                
====================================================================== 
Project:                    CMake
Issue ID:                   12563
Category:                   CMake
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     new
====================================================================== 
Date Submitted:             2011-11-08 09:50 CET
Last Modified:              2011-11-08 09:50 CET
====================================================================== 
Summary:                    CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS should be removed from the
documentation
Description: 
Currently the doc says "May not work!" and "This option does not work for more
complicated projects ..."

We lost some time trying to get this to work for our project, which is not
*that* complicated. Only then we became aware of:
* issue 6642 "Absolute relative paths for VS?", "won't fix" since 2008
(Quote: "If you are looking to create relocatable vcproj files CMake is the
wrong tool.")
* Bill Hoffman saying on the mailing list
"You should give up on CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS , and we should deprecate it
from CMake. It just does not work, and frustrates people." (2009-11-21)
* Michael Jackson saying on the list
"There are lots of questions on this CMake variable and the consensus is DO NOT
USE IT. PERIOD. The implementation is basically broken for all but the most
trivial case." (2009-12-21)

So I propose to remove this variable from the documentation in order to save
your users a lot of time of unsuccessfully testing it.

====================================================================== 

Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
====================================================================== 
2011-11-08 09:50 Robert Pollak  New Issue                                    
======================================================================