[cmake] [c++] require CMake 3.18+

[jameslamb]

Fixes #5642.

Might help with the following:

• Performance issue on Apple M2 Pro w/ macOS #5775
• Build fails for -DUSE_CUDA=1 #5785
• Can't build using CMAKE on Manjaro Linux #5955
• LIghtGBM generates incompatible architecture version in an M1 Mac #6249
• build cpp test fails with GCC at v4.2.0 #6252

Proposes the following:

• moving this project's minimum CMake version up to v3.18
• removing CMake version ranges from docs

Benefits of this change

This should reduce the risk of build failures with newer compilers, operating systems, architectures.

I'm especially hoping it'll help with M1/M2/M3 macOS support and supporting newer versions of CUDA.

Per the CMake docs (link):

The cmake_minimum_required(VERSION) command implicitly invokes the cmake_policy(VERSION) command to specify that the current project code is written for the given range of CMake versions. ... All policies introduced in later versions will be unset. This effectively requests behavior preferred as of a given CMake version and tells newer CMake versions to warn about their new policies.

(my emphasis)

So even on systems with newer versions of CMake installed, having cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0) binds them to how CMake behaved as of that release. The last CMake 3.x release was 5+ years ago (v3.0.2).

This change resolves this warning currently seen in many of LightGBM's supported platforms:

  CMake Deprecation Warning at CMakeLists.txt:35 (cmake_minimum_required):
    Compatibility with CMake < 3.5 will be removed from a future version of
    CMake.

    Update the VERSION argument <min> value or use a ...<max> suffix to tell
    CMake that the project does not need compatibility with older versions.

(example macOS sdist build this was observed on)

Why 3.18?

From https://cliutils.gitlab.io/modern-cmake/chapters/intro/installing.html

Your CMake version should be newer than your compiler. It should be newer than the libraries you are using (especially Boost

And from https://cliutils.gitlab.io/modern-cmake/chapters/intro/dodonot.html

What minimum to choose

• 3.12: C++20
• 3.17/3.18: CUDA
• 3.19: First to support Apple Silicon

I'm mainly recommending v3.18 to support the CUDA builds here.

Other evidence it could be ok:

• XGBoost has been using CMake >= 3.18.0 for about 9 months: [CI] Require C++17 + CMake 3.18; Use CUDA 11.8 in CI dmlc/xgboost#8853
• XGBoost used CMake >= 3.14.0 for the 3 years prior to that: [CI] Upgrade to CMake 3.14 dmlc/xgboost#7060
• it should be very easy for Windows and macOS users to update to newer versions, via conda, pip, official binaries from KitWare, and many other options from https://cliutils.gitlab.io/modern-cmake/chapters/intro/installing.html
• PyPI has CMake wheels for a wide range of platforms (link), and when building the Python package, scikit-build-core will automatically get one of those if the local CMake version isn't sufficiently new
• the distro-provided CMake is v3.22.1 on Ubuntu 22.04 (link), so any downstream project building on GitHub Actions ubuntu-latest (GHA docs) will be unaffected

[jameslamb]

Thanks for the review @guolinke ! I think this will really help with the next batch of packaging fixes I'd like to make (especially around M1/M2/M3 macOS).

[github-actions]

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