cannot use vcpkg to download C++ libraries in Windowsx64 Visual Studio Code - c++

I just installed VSCode on Windows to start using it as my first IDE. However, putting some basic programs in there, I noticed it (unlike another IDE I was using) does not have any libraries for C++ whatsoever.
#include <iostream> for example has a problem, and when I click it it says to go download vcpkg to download the libraries. I followed the instructions on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/vcpkg?view=vs-2019 to install it but when I try to use vcpkg search in the command line it does nothing. Is there any way to use vcpkg with VSCode? Running the .bat file as directed does nothing. I just want to get these libraries in so my programs I've already written will work and I can add new libraries as I need/learn them. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, I followed the instructions exactly, and when I search online there are no other helpful results.

I ran that line with forward slashes instead of backslashes and it did something, FYI:
$ ./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
Downloading https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg-tool/releases/download/2022-09-20/vcpkg.exe -> C:\Users\me\vcpkg.exe... done.
Validating signature... done.
Telemetry
vcpkg collects usage data in order to help us improve your experience.
The data collected by Microsoft is anonymous.
You can opt-out of telemetry by re-running the bootstrap-vcpkg script with -disableMetrics,
passing --disable-metrics to vcpkg on the command line,
or by setting the VCPKG_DISABLE_METRICS environment variable.
Read more about vcpkg telemetry at docs/about/privacy.md

Related

Building wxWidgets Hello world

The wxWidgets hello world example does not provide sufficient information to build wxWidgets in any one particular environment.
The Code::Blocks wxWidgets hello world example does provide sufficient information, but it does not seem likely that a newbie, or even a quite sophisticated user, could figure out all the necessary steps on their own, because there are arcane magic words required.
The Code Yarns example uses CMake, thus could run in many particular environments, but seems to assume that you have already set up wxWidgets and compiled it for your particular environment, and there does not seem to be a CMakeLists.txt file to compile wxWidgets for your particular environment.
wxWidgets is supposed to be cross platform and cross environment, and I am trying to set up a project to compile in several environments: on Windows10 Visual Studio, Windows 10 TDM-GCC, Windows 10 Code::Blocks, Ubuntu Code::Blocks, and Ubuntu 10 gcc.
And apart from the Code::Blocks environments, having trouble. Apart from Code::Blocks, I cannot find "Hello World" examples that actually set up wxWidgets on the target so that the Hello World will actually compile and run.
The wxWidgets samples directory is not particularly useful, since the samples assume an environment, and do not describe setting up that environment and the actions that will cause the sample to build and run.
Installation guide
I know this is a old question but I struggled really hard to find a guide for an installation on wxwidgets. You can use the vckpg importer by Microsoft. Make sure you have git installed before you follow this routine. I will write this for Windows with Visual Studio 2017:
Clone the following repository to a directory of your choice:
git clone https://www.github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg
Then open up powershell (ps) (run it as admin) and navigate to the cloned vcpkg folder
Now in ps, while you are in the vcpkg folder run the following command \.vcpkg integrate install so we have a user-wide integration of the vcpkg paket manager and can #include libraries in our c++ projects
Now to install wxwidgets 32-Bit run \.vcpkg install wxwidgets --triplet x86-windows. For the 64-Bit Version run \.vcpkg install wxwidgets --triplet x64-windows
Now open up the properties of your project in Visual Studio.
For the integration of the 64-Bit wxwidgets version choose all configurations and as plattform x64. Then go to C/C++ -> General -> Additional Include Directories and add the following folderpath YOUR_FOLDER_PATH\vcpkg\packages\wxwidgets_x64-windows\include;YOUR_FOLDER_PATH\vcpkg\packages\wxwidgets_x64-windows\lib. Do the same for the x86 configuration but with the wxwidgets_x86-windows folderpath instead.
As a last step go to in the properties under C/C++ -> Preprocessor and under the point Preprocessordefinition add the following as extra point WXUSINGDLL=1 (do it for the x64 and for the x86 plattform configuration if you want to use both)
Now you should be able to use the library and run the hello world project.
To build an app, first you need to have the library compiled. To achieve that you can get precompiled binaries or the sources (see Downloads) and compile them yourself (see Building).
Instructions might still not be perfect for everyone, and you are welcome to improve them - even call it your first contribution ;)
The installation instructions that I was looking for are to be found in wxWidgets/docs/install.txt
There are multiple ways to setup wxWidgets on Windows and use it in a project.
If your project is going to use CMake there are 2 main options (other than compiling stuff yourself some other way):
Use vcpkg - which, in theory, is the easiest, but I couldn't get it to work (in time). Here is some info on that: https://www.wxwidgets.org/blog/2019/01/wxwidgets-and-vcpkg/
The problem is find_package couldn't find the package, so then I just went to 2:
Download the lastest compiled headers, libs & bins from the wxwidgets and put them in a folder like c:/wxwidgets. Then, in your Cmake file, before the call to find_package, do:
SET(wxWidgets_ROOT_DIR "c:/wxwidgets/")
SET(wxWidgets_LIB_DIR "c:/wxwidgets/lib/vc14x_x64_dll")
SET(wxWidgets_CONFIGURATION "mswd")
The LIB_DIR is using VS2019 x64 in my case.
mswd just means build this for Debug
Finally, when adding the executable, do not forget the WIn32:
add_executable(membot WIN32 ${project_SRCS})
P.S.: Remember to extract the headers include folder near the lib.

VS2017 - How to configure project for remote debugging

I want to create an MP3 player on my Raspberry Pi (OS: Raspbian). The problem is, that i don't have any experience with Linux programming, and I'm having a huge problem with project configuration, becouse of cross platform compiling. I want to add two liblaries:
mpg123
libao
I'm able to compile the code on linux machine with gcc -O2 test.cpp -lmpg123, but I can't force Visual Studio to make see those libs.
I'm also having a problem with using wiringPi lib while I'm trying to remote debugging my program, since I have to run it as root for GPIO configuration. Is there any way for any way to force Visual Studio to run my compiled code with root privilages?
Personally I come from a long history of C/C++/MFC/Windows programming with no Linux experience at all. I started programming for the Raspberry a year or so ago, when I got one from my son for my birthday. With a C/C++ history it's really not that hard, but you just have to read in a bit because on Linux a lot is the same, and a lot isn't :). Just read and read and in time, you're an experienced Linux programmer! It takes some time I'm afraid.
So, I'm sort of an experienced newbie on this I think :). I found a lot of info on www.die.net (and other Linux man pages). If you search there for a function, say printf(), look at the (3) pages - they explain how you should use 'm.
But although VS2017 does a really good job on this, it's not always going as smooth as you would like. Sometimes it's just necessary to reboot your Raspberry, restart VS and try again. The Linux cross-compiling is quite new in VS and isn't perfect yet.
A few tips:
Use a Raspberry with a fresh Stretch image to start with. Of course after a sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade.
Set the debugger in Visual Studio to gdb instead of gdbserver. This will prevent certain debugging problems.
Place all your source files (.h and .cpp) in the main folder of your project alongside the main.cpp. If you place them in different directories and then include in your project, you can debug your program but you won't be able to step through.
Start simple and debug your program often when you're developing. Don't add too much code before your next check. In a cross-compile setup there are just a lot more things than normal that can (and will) go wrong.
VS2017 has default Linux include files in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\Linux\include. If you need others, place them in a folder of you own and include the path.
With cross-compiling VS itself doesn't do any compiling, you use it to maintain your project. When the project has to be compiled, all necessary files are copied to the Raspberry and the compiler and linker there are invoked by VS.
On your question how to configure a project for remote debugging: it's probably best to start with the Blink example in Visual Studio 2017 (File, New, Project, Installed, Visual C++, Cross Platform, Linux => Blink). It should run without problems. From there, you can build further on your project.
In the Blink example, they use wiringPiSetupSys() and the remote command gpio export 17 out to run your program without sudo. I've found that changing that to wiringPiSetup() and disabling the remote command, it still is possible to run and debug the program. On the Raspberry I can run the program from it's folder by issuing ./[programname]. If that doesn't work for you, you could run the program by issuing sudo ./[programname].

VSCode c++ configuring for vc toolchain

I'm trying to start a work in vscode , latest C++ plugin version supports ms debugger, so as I'm mostly working under windows it was a signal to try this.
c++ tools plugin from MS and cmake tools were installed.
my test project was however not built . the problem is clear , but I need an advice from experienced vscode users how to solve this right.
cmake doesn't see vc compiler.
(after using QtCreator) I expected that vscode could detect vc installation... however that's not so. ok, I have a two ways:
fill environment variables INCLUDE/LIB/PATH with a headers, libs and binaries
just run vcvarsall.bat x64
Second way is a simple and reliable. so final question is:
how to run .bat at the begining of vscode start?
(I don't mean write another bat/cmd, prepare the environment and run vscode inside the same script after that)
Although the question is fairly old, I'll try to give a useful answer, in case others stumble across, just like I did.
I believe what you are trying to achieve is not possible. Code inherits the environment it was started with. If you did not launch it from a developer command prompt, you will not be able build and debug. (Building might be possible if every task first starts the vcvarsall.bat, but that slows things down by a lot. Debugging I think will still not work.)
If you are willing to, you can check out vector-of-bools CMake Tools extension which does build automation as well as automatic MSVC detection. It builds using CMake (thus you need to write your build scripts using CMake), but it will take care of building just by pressing F7, like what most VS users are familiar with.

Build C++ Universal App from command line without MSBuild

In the same spirit as the question Can I download the Visual C++ Command Line Compiler without Visual Studio? I would like to see if it is easy to bundle the appropriate part of Visual Studio to build Universal App written in C++. Following the answer by #Alek to the aforementioned question, I managed to create an archive where I can basically unzip and use. But this is for traditional desktop (I would say, command-line) programs. I tried to do similar thing for Universal App and there are a couple of issues
The official way (i.e. what Visual Studio does under the hood) is to use MSBuild. Unfortunately, I do not know what are and how to get all of its dependencies. It seems to require significant configuration effort as well.
There is no documentation on how to build resources (e.g. generate C++ source and headers from XAML), how to generate the .appx. If possible, a Makefile template is very much appreciated.
The reason to ask for this is because Visual Studio failed me so many times. For instance, the November Update messed up my entire system; the SDK installer fail at 96% and rolled back. Previously, the upgrade to VS2015 (from 2013) also messed me up entirely. It seems that the only solution to these problems is complete uninstall. Having a portable archive where I can just unzip and restore my production environment back to health is something I would say extremely desirable.
Note: I do not care about the IDE. I only need the ability to build apps from source code on the command prompt.

Building Qt cross compile from windows

[edit] Sorry, I out thought myself. I was using a .bat file to set environment variables that wasn't set up properly. When I went to a straight VS2005 command prompt, the configure ran fine. Sorry for the noise.[/edit]
I'm trying to compile qt-everywhere-opensource for embedded. I'm using MSVC2005. However, I guess I am confused on the process. I am getting compiler errors during the configure step. I thought the configure step was just trying to generate the needed makefiles, so I'm not sure what it is trying to compile.
I expected to modify the mkspec, but I'm not sure if during configure I should point to windows headers or sdk headers. I know during the build phase I should point to sdk headers, but I'm not getting that far.
I can change the errors by modifying INCPATH, there's also a QMAKE_INCDIR that seems to have an effect. It occurred to me that since I pulled the source, maybe configure needs to build the compiler tools, in which case I should point to MSVC headers. I also tried downloading the SDK and adding the path to it's bin folder to my path ahead of the -everywhere- source, but that didn't fix the problem and I don't want to jack up my system too much testing things.
Hope someone out there can help!
When you install Qt from source under Win32, you must:
Extend the PATH variable to include $(QTDIR)\bin, where $(QTDIR) is the directory where you installed Qt.
Open a Visual Studio command prompt in $(QTDIR); a plain old Windows command prompt won't do (unless you run vcvars.bat to load Visual Studio's environment variables; but opening a Visual Studio command prompt directly is better).
At this point, configure should run properly, after which you can run nmake.
I suggest that you clear your previous installation attempts from your system before you try these steps.