Building C++ API of Third Party Library in Visual Studio C++ Project - c++

I have been successfully testing an image processing library (https://github.com/libvips/libvips) in a C++ project in VS2017. I am new to C/C++ and I have been following the documentation here which describes the C way of using the library. There are features I would like to try in the C++ API, but the C++ API needs to be built with the same compiler as my project. According to the author:
It's slightly awkward to set up under Windows. The problem is that C++
does not have a ABI, so you must use exactly the same C++ compiler for
your whole project. This means the libvips C++ win binary (built with
g++) won't work with MSVC C++.
You need to copy the libvips C++ API source code into your own project
and build it with your own code. It's just a few files and pretty
simple to incorporate:
https://github.com/libvips/libvips/tree/master/cplusplus
I have made several attempts to build the minimal set of files but I have not had any success.
My steps so far:
Create a C++ console app in VS2017, set to Debug and x64
Extract the 'vips-dev-8.10' folder from vips-dev-w64-all-8.10.6.zip to where the project file is (this contains all the built .dll files, .lib files, .h files etc.)
Extract 'cplusplus' folder from 'libvips-master.zip' to where the project file is (this has all the project source files including the cplusplus folder which is the part I have to build per the above explanation)
Add the following folders to Project > Properties > C/C++->General > Additional Include Directories
C:\Projects\ConsoleApplicationVIPS3\ConsoleApplicationVIPS3\cplusplus\include\vips
C:\Projects\ConsoleApplicationVIPS3\ConsoleApplicationVIPS3\vips-dev-8.10\include
C:\Projects\ConsoleApplicationVIPS\ConsoleApplicationVIPS\vips-dev-8.10\lib\glib-2.0\include
C:\Projects\ConsoleApplicationVIPS\ConsoleApplicationVIPS\vips-dev-8.10\include\glib-2.0
Add the 5 .cpp files from the cplusplus folder into the project Source Files folder and Add them in the project tree.
Build the project.
As a result I get the following errors:
I haven't written any code yet. I thought I should just be able to point to the .h include files and compile the required C++ files. It's not clear to me what else I might need to add, but it definitely seems like I don't understand the correct procedure to build the project. I watched some videos on C++ compilation like this one but I cant see where I went wrong.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
EDITS 3-Jun-21
I have made some changes. I have instead extracted the exact version of the library according to the suggestion by #Frank, and I also discovered the usefulness of the compiler output window, thanks #Alan Birtles.
I am still getting errors, but I am not clear why. The first error is:
E0020 identifier "VImage" is undefined
Which is odd because I have added the folders to Project > Properties > C/C++->General > Additional Include Directories, and one of them is ..\cplusplus\include\vips which contains VImage8.h
And the Output window shows
Any further advice would be appreciated!

Related

linking v8 to c++ application

I'm having trouble trying to get v8 working with visual studio 2019.
I have followed the compiling guide on v8.dev and built it on windows.
I have followed [this]Google V8 - Neither v8.dll nor v8.dll.lib getting built in release mode answer to obtain .dll and .lib files.
Now I'm stuck. I tried to build the examples they show on the official site (https://chromium.googlesource.com/v8/v8/+/branch-heads/6.8/samples/hello-world.cc) but I get all sorts of errors.
From what I understand, I need .dll, .lib and .h files. I have them, but I'm not able to use them correctly in visual studio.
I have tried adding the header files under include directories and .lib files under Linker > Input > Additional Dependencies without luck.
There are good chances anyone who has worked with c++ beyond simple console programs will laugh at my ignorance, and I would understand that.
Any help would be very appreciated.
UPDATE
These are the steps i followed to use v8:
1) Created a new c++ console solution
2) Added header directory at Configuration > C/C++ > Additional Include Directories
3) Added dll and v8.dll.lib folder in Configuration > Linker > Input > Additional Dependencies
4) Pasted this (https://chromium.googlesource.com/v8/v8/+/branch-heads/6.8/samples/hello-world.cc) code to my editor
The first type of error I got is E1696: it looks like some headers contain references to other headers with absolute paths and not relative paths.
I fix this by myself making reference paths relative in headers.
Then I get 23 LNK2019 errors:
screeshot
What should I do?

How to include SFML source code into my visual studio 2017 c++ project and compile

I have been programming a game in c++ using the sfml library. However, I would like to adjust some of the code of that library, and use that altered code in my project.
So instead of linking the dll I would like to add the source code and then play with that source code. (e.g. for speed optimization).
I know that doing something like that is generally speaking a bad idea. Howeover, I want to learn by playing around a bit and trying different things.
So how would I add the sfml source code to my c++ project in MS visual studio. Note that I am a total noob. I already tried adding the sfml folder that I downloaded from git in the project properties page called "Additional Include Directories", but i am getting errors, of the form "Cannot open include file: 'SFML/Graphics/GLCheck.hpp': No such file or directory" so I guess that i have not yet done enough.
If you want to modify the source code in the library, all you'd have to do is just navigate to where you have SFML installed and go into the code files with a text editor and edit them.
Then, you could link the library to your VS project the same way you would normally but that library is now modified by you.
Seeing as you have a search directory issue already in VS, you must fix that first. Fix that and then go and modify the library's .hpp, .h, .cpp, whatever files in-place.
To fix the search issue.... I don't use VS for graphics, I use CodeBlocks so I am not sure about their GUI to link libraries and change search directories... but, find out where you installed SFML. Check your /usr/include/, it's probably there. Specify that path in the search directories. Just go and find where that GLCheck.hpp file is located. For Example: Say it's full path is /usr/include/SFML/Graphics/GLCheck.hpp... then /usr/include/SFML/Graphics/ or just /usr/include/ (VS might handle it recursively) needs to be in the list of SEARCH DIRECTORIES.

Create MS Visual C++ DLL project out of existing sources

My goal is to compile existing C++ classes (legacy code, stored in a set of *.h files) into a DLL so that it can be further integrated into a C# application.
For that purpose, it seems best to use MS Visual Studio. I have no experience with this environment, so I tried the naive approach found on MSDN and other SO answers:
File | New | Project from existing code
selected Visual C++
selected file location that is base for include references used in those .h files
specified a project name
let the wizard find and add all C++ files below the directory
selected "Use Visual Studio" for build, with project type "Dynamically Linked Library (DLL) project"
checked none of the checkboxes below (ATL, MFC, CLR)
specified . dir in the "Include search paths (/I)" in Debug settings
checked "Same as Debug configuration" in "Release settings"
clicked Finish button
This creates couple of VS files in the directory:
mylibrary.sln
mylibrary.vcxproj
mylibrary.vcxproj.filters
mylibrary.vcxproj.user
With a project created this way, I press F6 or select Build | Rebuild solution from the menu.
Then I expect the build to produce the .dll file somewhere, but it does not appear. Only these files appear:
.vs/mylibrary/v15/.suo
.vs/mylibrary/v15/Browse.VC.db
.vs/mylibrary/v15/Browse.VC.opendb
.vs/mylibrary/v15/ipch/AutoPCH/efad7c74cd39331b/EXAMPLE.ipch
Debug/mylibrary.log
Debug/mylibrary.tlog/mylibrary.lastbuildstate
Next, I decided to try creating a fresh new library project, just to observe the differences to get some hints, but that did not help - there were too many differences, even in the file structure...
My questions are:
is my choice of MS Visual C++ a good one for given purpose?
if so, what am I doing wrong here?
I think your steps are probably correct and I think that the right approach to use the code from a C# application. You definitely can call a C++ library from C# by importing the methods.
You missed only to export the methods that you want to use from your library. try using __declspec(dllexport) with these methods. please check this link:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a90k134d.aspx.
Also, the output should be at the build folder, not the source code folder
Compiling .h files into libraries is ok, the compiler does not care - however, the UI does.
Still, you can tweak this by directly editing the .vcxproj file.
While doing so, make sure that the <ClCompile> sections contain:
<RuntimeLibrary>MultiThreadedDLL</RuntimeLibrary>
Note that you can use commandline for building the DLL project:
"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe" -target:Clean,Build
(this assumes that your current directory is the one with your .vcxproj)

Llinking ITK (Insight Toolkit) to C++ VS2008 solution without using CMake?

Question
Is there an easy, straight forward way of including the ITK libraries into my project (VS2008 solution) without using CMake?
Background
I have just started looking into ITK this week. So far I successfully compiled ITK & VTK and got the WikiExamples to compile (and run) as well. My next goal is to include any ITK functionality into my own project. I have no experiences with CMake except the use of it during the documented installation process.
My own project codebase is in itself a rather complicated, SDK environment in rather large, complex VS2008 solution to which I only want to add a bit of ITK functionality. As I have built ITK already, can I simply set includes to the .h files and add the lib directories to the linker?
Is there a good way to do this, as the .h files are spread over the whole ITK code tree?
I've realized that this question is similar, but the given answer was too cryptic for me, sorry.
Edit: After a 2nd and 3rd read, it actually wasn't. It led to my answer below.
When configuring ITK with CMake (or cmake-gui) one can set the variable CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to a destination for all output. The default value is C:/Programm Files (x84)/itk
After Configure and Generate have been performed successfully, the solution file (ITK.sln) has been created in the given "Where to build the binaries" directory and can be opened in Visual Studi0 2008. The solution has the default project ALL_BUILD which builds the solution, but it also has a INSTALL project which is skipped by default.
Building this solution (after ALL_BUILD) copies all required lib, .h, .dll etc. files into the path specified before.
This folder structure is the place to link my own project up to.
Linking in your own project
In your own project of VS Studio (I'm on VS 2008) you have to modify your project properties to include the include files:
And you have to modify your project properties to include the library files for linking:

Linking problems with TinyXml++ and Visual C++ Express Edition 2008

I'm trying to use TinyXml++ in my project, and I have tested it successfully in a small program before. I recently decided to use it to read a configuration file in my current project and though the code compiled, I got a ton of linker errors (unresolved external symbols mostly). I read in some forum thread, describing a similar problem, that I had to use the same runtime library as TinyXml++ was compiled with. I opened the accompanying Visual C++ 2008 project and saw it was using Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd).
I have now tested all runtime libraries with and without #define TINYXML_USE_TICPP before I include "ticpp.h". I've gotten from 9 to 80 linker errors (which I why I initially didn't want to post them all, but I will if you want to see them).
I have copied the static library ticppd.lib (found in the download folder) to my project's directory and linked it under Linker->Input->Addtional Dependencies. I have included a directory path to the TinyXml++ source under C/C++->General->Addtional Include Directories. What am I doing wrong? :(
TinyXML is a library with the full source code available; you should not need to include a .lib. You could separate TinyXML into a separate project and mark your project as depending on it, which will allow you to compile both projects with consistent settings for threading and debugging, but the easiest way to get it working should be to just add the TinyXML .cpp and .h files (just not the test one) to your project and compile.