[CMake] LIST bugs for cmake version 2.6-patch 0 RC-8

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2008-05-07 15:18-0700 Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> I used your FOREACH example in my post, but it is really this expansion
> inconsistency in all contexts which bothers me. Your answer so far is
> essentially "we have always done it that way".  Perhaps there are excellent
> practical reasons for that language quirk that are obvious to you, but I
> cannot think of what those might be at the moment so I would appreciate
> your help in identifying those practical reasons.

Never mind, I have thought of them now.  I thought the POLICY mechanism
would be enough to keep backwards compatibility for existing build systems,
and therefore it would be straightforward to change the language to improve
its consistency for build systems implemented in the future. However, that
is an overly simplistic view.  In my zeal to have more consistency in the
language, I forgot about the existing body of macros that come with CMake.
If this language quirk is fixed there is bound to be some LIST variable
expansion in those macors that will screw up in obscure ways that will
depend on whether platform- and user-dependent LIST variables have empty
values or not.  So unfortunately I think we are stuck with this particular
language inconsistency.

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); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); 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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