[Pkg-cmake-team] Bug#1050506: Could NOT find EXPAT (missing: EXPAT_LIBRARY) (found version "2.5.0")

[Mathieu Malaterre]

Source: cmake
Version: 3.27.3-1
Severity: serious
Justification: FTBFS
Tags: trixie sid ftbfs
User: lucas at debian.org
Usertags: ftbfs-20230726 ftbfs-trixie
Affects: src:gdcm

Original bug report is #1042246

Here is a minimal reproduce:

% cat ../CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.9.2)
#cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.27)
project(p)

find_package(EXPAT REQUIRED)
find_package(VTK REQUIRED)

The above gives:

% rm CMakeCache.txt && cmake ..
[...]
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.27/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:230
(message):
  Could NOT find EXPAT (missing: EXPAT_LIBRARY) (found version "2.5.0")
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /usr/share/cmake-3.27/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:600
(_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/cmake/vtk-9.1/FindEXPAT.cmake:65
(FIND_PACKAGE_HANDLE_STANDARD_ARGS)
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/cmake/vtk-9.1/VTK-vtk-module-find-packages.cmake:1243
(find_package)
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/cmake/vtk-9.1/vtk-config.cmake:150 (include)
  CMakeLists.txt:6 (find_package)

It is unclear why changing:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.9.2)

into

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.27)

make the symptoms go away.

Thanks for comments,