I have a large VisualStudio solution with multiple projects.
So far it supports Debug|Win32, Debug|x64, Release|Win32, Release|x64, ReleaseLog|Win32, ReleaseLog|x64, (ReleaseLog is similar to Release but with logging turned on).
I'd like to add a new config type, similar to Release but only one compilation flag changes.
I'd like avoiding creating whole new section of Configuration in each vcxproj that are "duplicate" of Release configuration, and most importantly I want to be sure that beside this one compilation flag everything else will be exactly the same.
How can I achieve ?
Can we make a Configuration inheriting from another one ?
You need to inherit release through configuration manger -> new solution configuration and check create project configuration.
Related
Motivation
PreBuild to disable compilation of redundant projects for faster compilation cycle.
Background
I have a VS15 ALL solution that contains many projects.
I have a single project, PreBuild, that all the other projects are dependent on, meaning, this PreBuild compiles first.
In addition, we also have a PostBuild project that do some more work once binaries are ready.
All projects are configured to build in Release mode (which is desired).
When a team member wants to release some binaries, he hits F7, Build Solution.
Now, the PreBuild, activates a separate dedicated process that calculates which projects should be released. The nature of the calculation is irrelevant to this discussion.
Problem
Out of the many many projects, it is often the case that only a few projects needs to be released. However, once the PreBuild process is done, ALL the projects are will compile which is very time consuming.
Question
Is it possible, after a solution build had started, to change the released projects?
Suggested unwanted approaches
A developer handpicks only the relevant projects and only build those.
PreBuild Kill & Revive. Once desired projects are calculated, PreBuild kills the VS15 process and activate a cmd compiling only the relevant projects.
Suggested approach
Change file ALL.sln and remove the the unwanted projects.
This would work had I changed that file prior to the process start but I'm not sure it would work if this change occurs during the process.
The simplest way I can think of, while still keeping most of the current infrastructure in place: have a dedicated project which invokes the release build (by calculating dependencies and invoking msbuild) and configure VS so it can be select just that project for a build. All from within your ALL.sln so the rest of the features remain. Steps:
Get rid of the PreBuild/PostBuild projects. I assume the PostBuild you mention is also meant for the actual release builds; if not just leave it there. Note by not requiring all projects to depend on the PreBuild project you already got rid of one maintainance burden.
Add one single project which will do the release building, say ReleaseBuild. Such name is also better than having PreBuild/PostBuild projects since it clearly states the intent of the project. A Makefile project is suitable, though technically it could be as simple as an msbuild file with just one Build target. Configure the build command line to do whatever is needed, i.e. figuring out what to build then build. For the sake of an example: say you use Powershell to do this you would configure the build commandline to be
Powershell -NoProfile -File BuildRelease.ps1 $(Platform)
and BuildRelease.ps1 contains something like
$projectsToRelease = CalculateMyProjectsForRelease()
$platform = $Args[0]
$projectsToRelease | %{& msbuild $_ "/p:Configuration=Release;Platform=$platform"}
In Configuration Manager add an extra Configuration called Deploy or so. This will be used to select what to build: you probably have Debug and Release configurations now already. Those stay in place, and are simply used to build everything. The idea is this extra configuration will take care of building the actual release. This is fairly consistent with the standard way of working in VS and easy to discover and understand for newcomers. Using the checkboxes, make it so that when the Deploy configuration is selected only the ReleaseBuild is built and none of the others whereas when Debug or Release is selected the ReleaseBuild project is not built. Looks like this:
To build a release, select Deploy from the configuration drop down menu in the VS toolbar and hit F7 (or whatever way you use to invoke Build Solution). Any build errors/warnings will be parsed and shown as usual in the Error List.
This is also easy to extend: suppose you only have a couple of release build versions just add more configurations like DeployA DeployB DeployC and adjust the build command line for them.
I have a set of environment variables I use in all my projects, as well as custom make targets that I use for my builds in Eclipse (Mars 4.5.0). In order not to have to set these every time, I made a new configuration from a configured project under Project->Properties->C/C++ Build. However, when I now select that configuration in a new project and hit apply or OK, I find the changes haven't taken effect, and if I open up Project->Properties again, I see it has reverted to the default.
What am I doing wrong?
This isn't quite satisfactory, but in case others have the same issue, I found that one way to deal with the issue is to simply delete the default configuration, so that your custom configuration is the only option. I'm curious whether this is a bug or whether I'm going about this the wrong way...
When I try to batch build my project, I encounter this error while I have enabled the clr runtime support.
My project can run with no problem and I only receive this error when I try to make a batch build.
I have made a lot of searched in google but most results are about enabling the clr option.
I'd like to know how I can fix this problem.
This is the kind of problem you'll run into when you make project setting changes while you are debugging your project. Settings are stored per configuration. A common mistake is to make the change for the Debug configuration but forgetting to make the same change for the Release configuration. Kaboom when you then try to get the Release configuration built, as would happen when you use Batch Build.
Go slower. Project + Properties, Configuration Properties, General. Note the combobox labeled "Configuration" in the upper left corner. It probably now says "Active (Debug)". Change it to "Release". And note how the "Common Language Runtime support" setting changes as you flip back and forth. Make them the same, /clr. Use Build + Configuration Manager to make the Release build the default configuration and use Build + Build to build it. Test it.
There might be other settings you've changed that need to be corrected for the Release build as well.
I'm trying to alter the default property sheet on a new install of Visual Studio 2010 for C++ projects. Just trying to add a few directories (for Boost etc.) and optimisation settings for release builds, basic stuff like that. Obviously there are some settings that I want to be different for different configurations. Problem is that whatever I try from the property manager window of my project, everything I do seems to affect both configurations.
I tried multi-selecting both -> right click -> properties initially, to set up common settings, and that did exactly the same thing as selecting Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.User under either debug or release. So everything affects both configs.
Now, as I understand it, Microsoft.Cpp.Win32... is a single file (at least, a single file for x86 configs, single file for x64 etc.) so the fact that I can't change the configs individually actually makes some degree of sense. But if I can't do it that way, how can I do it?
Appreciate any advice!
Short answer: you can't. See comment discussion under question.
Is it possible to combine the following properties, and if so, how?
Store in our version control system some Visual Studio 2008 native C++ (VCPROJ) project files for the developers in our team that use this IDE.
Allow some of those developers to tweak their projects (e.g. using debug version of third-party libraries instead of the usual ones).
Make sure these modifications are done in files that are not versioned.
In other words, I would like to allow developers to tweak some settings in their projects without risking that these changes are committed.
An 'optional VSPROP' file approach seems doomed to fail, as VS2008 refuses to load projects that refer to non-existent VSPROP files...
Any other suggestion? Is this possible with VS2010?
You may not be able to do this but using a solution that generates the vcproj like CMake for example would let you do this. Scripts all your project with CMake and literally conditionally include a config file(if present for example) that developers can change on their setup.
Branches could solve this problem: you create a branch, play with different versions of third-party, merge changes to trunk if results are good.
Well, as a preliminary solution you could put the project file into something like .hgignore or .gitignore after its initial commit.
This way changes to it can't be done accidentally.
At least that's how I handle .hgignore itself.
We use a versionned "common_configuration" folder, and a script which copies project files from this "common_configuration" folder towards the "project" folder.
We have another script to copy the configuration backwards, so the developpers need to make a conscious action to commit their local changes to the global version control system.
It answers partly your needs :
The upside : we have a way to keep a common configuration for everyone, and no accidental committing of local configuration
The downside : blindly copying the files actually crushes local changes. We live with it. We could write some more clever merger tool (using diff, or xml specific manipulations), but don't want to spend to much time on supporting the deployment tools.