I am a big fan of the C++ Core Guidelines and I like to follow them in all projects I work on, so I enabled the following option in my project template in Visual Studio 2017:
This tool is great and helps me write better code, but I simply cannot figure out how to make it only analyze my files. Whenever my project has a dependency such as Boost or OpenCV, I will get plastered with a wall of warnings:
These dependencies are added through vcpkg, however, the same thing happens when adding them manually with C/C++ > General > Additional Include Directories.
Is there any way to only make these warnings apply to project files, and not all included files?
As mentioned in the comments, right after the following section in your .vcxproj near the end of the file:
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.targets" />
<ImportGroup Label="ExtensionTargets">
</ImportGroup>
The problem may be solved by adding the following after the section mentioned above:
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Language)'=='C++'">
<CAExcludePath>$(QTDIR)\include;.\GeneratedFiles;$(CAExcludePath)</CAExcludePath>
</PropertyGroup>
Furthermore, if you are using vcpkg, which was the case in my situation, you will need to add the following element to the CAExcludePath:
$(VcpkgRoot)include
This will ensure that all headers from any packages will not be analyzed.
Related
It happens in a complex solution, but I can reproduce it in a new empty solution.
I built it (ctrl+shift+B) with debug mode, X86, diagnostic.
1> Set Property: _InvalidConfigurationMessageText=The OutputPath
property is not set for project 'ConsoleApplication1.vcxproj'. Please
check to make sure that you have specified a valid combination of
Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='Debug'
Platform='Win32'. 1> Set Property:
_InvalidConfigurationMessageText=The OutputPath property is not set for project 'ConsoleApplication1.vcxproj'. Please check to make sure
that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and
Platform for this project. Configuration='Debug' Platform='Win32'.
This error may also appear in some other project is trying to follow a
project-to-project reference to this project, this project has been
unloaded or is not included in the solution, and the referencing
project does not build using the same or an equivalent Configuration
or Platform.
^ I make sure that there isn't any References that it claims.
Here is what I have tried.
First, a part of my .vcxproj (link to the full file) looks like this:-
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'" Label="Configuration">
<ConfigurationType>Application</ConfigurationType>
<UseDebugLibraries>true</UseDebugLibraries>
<PlatformToolset>v141</PlatformToolset>
<CharacterSet>Unicode</CharacterSet>
### I will insert something here ###
</PropertyGroup>
According to a SO link and another one, I should insert one of these lines at ### :-
<OutputPath>$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\</OutputPath>
<OutputPath>$(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\</OutputPath>
<OutputPath>bin\$(Platform)\</OutputPath>
Same as above, but add it in <ItemGroup Label="ProjectConfigurations">
Remove Label="Configuration".
According to another SO link, I also tried AnyCPU or Any CPU (tested in a more complex solution, but a new empty solution doesn't have it.).
A Microsoft link states that Output Path is for C#. In C++, I must use Output Directory. It is OutDir.
<OutDir>$(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\</OutDir>
<OutDir>$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\</OutDir>
Do above things, but in a property sheet.
Do above things, but also unloaded-reload project, and even restart VS2017.
After I tried every combination, the warning still exists.
The program can be compiled and run correctly,
but I believe it is a cause of unnecessary recompilation in a much larger solution.
Question: How to solve the warning/error?
OutputPath word in the console is suspicious.
I doubt VS recognize my solution as C#. (is it even possible? - my test project has std::cout)
For some reasons, most SO questions about this error are related to msbuild or C# or .net (another one), not C++.
Reply
There is no such Win32 option in the combo box, so I create a new one.
Configuration Manager > Active solution platform : <New...>
I also make sure that the setting is correct :-
However, I still got the same error message.
You have suspicious platform set - x86, change it to Win32.
UPD.: so the problem appears to be not with the project, but with Visual Studio installation - try to repair/reinstall it.
On my case, we moved the project from a different system, so, some of the directories were pointing to a wrong (non default) path.
On Solution Explorer, right click the project name, select Unload the project, then, right click again and select Edit the xxx.csproj, finally search, check and fix your <OutputPath>bin\Debug\</OutputPath> or <OutputPath>bin\Release\</OutputPath>on your different PropertyGroup conditions.
While trying to answer this SO question I encountered an issue which I cannot explain and would appreciate your input on.
Setup:
Have solution consisting of several C++ projects (Test.sln),
Add a brand new project to your solution (BuildInstaller.vcxproj),
Open BuildInstaller.vcxproj in text editor and append following xml fragment right before closing </Project> tag:
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="..\Test.sln" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32" />
<MSBuild Projects="..\Test.sln" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=x64" />
</Target>
Above code overrides default Build target of the BuildInstaller project and everytime the project is being built, it builds its parent solution with Release configuration for both Win32 and x64 platforms,
To prevent unbounded recursion, open Configuration Manager in Visual Studio and uncheck "Build" checkbox for BuildInstaller project for all combinations of Debug/Release and Win32/x64,
Then, still in Configuration Manager, create a new configuration, e.g. Installer for which you should uncheck all the other project's Build checkbox and leave it checked for BuildInstaller only,
Now build your solution for Installer configuration.
I would expect this build to finish successfully, but it simply hangs, even though BuildInstaller should not be built recursively as we are recursively building the Test.sln only for Release configuration.
I am not asking whether this is a good approach or how to work around it, I am just curious why the build hangs. Setting output window verbosity to Diagnostic was of no help to me.
I am using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.
MSBuild has an internal protection about recursion in the projects. Normally your build will fail with error MSB4006 in a case if any sort of circular dependency is discovered in the build graph. That said, if I were to guess what might have caused the hang, and if it is related to recursion, I would have inclined on the side of .sln files. The reason is that the way MSBuild treats .sln files is quite peculiar. Any time it encounters .sln file, it converts it to intermediate representation that actual MSBuild engine can understand. That intermediate representation does not have any identifier similar to the project file, thus the circular dependency detection logic might not work correctly if .sln is in the loop.
To solve your particular problem, there are couple of ways. The easiest one is to remove BuildInstaller.vcxproj from Test.sln. The second is to modify BuildInstaller.vcxproj as follows:
First, create an ItemGroup, populated with all projects from the solution:
<ItemGroup>
<AllMyProjects Include="..\Proj1\Proj1.vcxproj" />
<AllMyProjects Include="..\Proj2\Proj2.vcxproj" />
...
<!-- DO NOT ADD BuildInstaller project to prevent recursion!!! -->
</ItemGroup>
Then build the projects for every configuration:
<Target Name="Build">
<MSBuild Projects="#AllMyProjects" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32" />
<MSBuild Projects="#AllMyProjects" Properties="Configuration=Release;Platform=x64" />
</Target>
The downside of the second approach is that you have to remember to maintain list of projects in sync between .sln and your installer project.
I have multiple build configurations in my project, and I'd like to swap some .CPP files based on the currently selected configuration. How can I do that in Visual Studio 2013?
In the GUI, see properties of a cpp file and set "Excluded From Build" to yes for the configurations where it's excluded.
In the project file would look like:
<ClCompile Include="my_platform_specific_file.cpp">
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|x64'">
true
</ExcludedFromBuild>
</ClCompile>
In the IDE.
Select the configuration you want to alter (either from Build > Configuration Manager or the drop down in the toolbar. From the solution explorer, on the file you wish to; right click > Properties > Excluded from Build > Select Yes or No.
In the project file itself, locate the file being excluded
<ClCompile Include="xyz.cpp">
Add the following element;
<ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='MyConfiguration|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>
Where MyConfiguration is the configuration you wish to exclude the file from.
This might be a good reason to start looking into more generic project managers.
I can recommend you looking into CMake , which is very powerful and can generate VisualStudio projects. The learning curve might be a high (for someone who is used to Visual Studio automation) but the gains are very high.
Some links:
Linking different libraries for Debug and Release builds in Cmake on windows?
http://cmaketools.codeplex.com/ - support for CMake files editing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9sKd8f0kFo - video displaying cmake integration into VisualStudoi
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake - random help
The project site is: http://www.cmake.org
I am newbie.
I want to create a Visual C++ project as programmatically.
I have tried EnvDTE objects but they are working on instance of current solution but I want to edit different project file of different solution that not opened anywhere.
How can I get instance of different project to edit it?
And I am using Visual Studio 2013 Express. Is there any limimation for it? Should I use VSPackage's?
Thanks.
In general I would recommend considering a build system like CMake or Scons. It allows to generate build scripts for arbitrary platform (as such it includes MSVS solution files).
However, you might simply edit project file with some script or program. Project files are plain xml files and it's easy to add external files.
<ItemGroup>
<ClCompile Include="some_file.cpp" />
</ItemGroup>
I have a solution with several C++ projects. For some of the projects I need some custom file copy, e.g. to copy some configuration files to the output directory or to copy the output files of one project to a specific folder after build.
In some cases I don't want or cannot add these files to the projects directly through the Visual Studio IDE. I created simple .targets files which I can reuse and add to the projects which need the file copying.
Here is a simple example .targets file for copying configuration files:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildDependsOn>
$(BuildDependsOn);
CopyCustom
</BuildDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<CustomFiles Include="$(ProjectDir)Config\**\*.xml" />
</ItemGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<DestCustFolder>$(OutDir)Config\</DestCustFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CopyCustom"
Inputs="#(CustomFiles )"
Outputs="#(CustomFiles ->'$(DestCustFolder)%(RecursiveDir)%(FileName)%(Extension)')">
<Message Text="Copy custom files..." />
<Copy SourceFiles="#(CustomFiles )" DestinationFiles="#(CustomFiles->'$(DestCustFolder)%(RecursiveDir)%(FileName)%(Extension)')" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
</Target>
</Project>
Through the "Build Customization" dialog in Visual Studio I add it to the project so it will be included like this at the end of the project file:
<ImportGroup Label="ExtensionTargets">
<Import Project="..\Targets\CopyCustom.targets" />/
</ImportGroup>
This should enable incremental build of my custom target. If I just edit one of my custom files (and none of the C++ files) and build it form the console with
msbuild foo1.vcxproj
it will actually detect the changes and does an incremental build for my custom target. If no changes are made the target is skipped.
If I do however build inside Visual Studio it will not detect changes to the custom files and only and gives me the message that the project is up to data:
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 0 failed, 5 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========
I would have to additionally change one of the C++ files to make it check all targets again and to the incremental build.
I was expecting that Visual Studio just executes MSBuild which will then do the up-to-date check on the projects, so it should be the same result as running MSBuild from the console. I was trying to get more information by setting the verbosity level to diagnostic but I just get the same line. It seems to me that MSBuild is not even executed for the project but Visual Studio itself determines that the project is up-to-date.
So I was wondering how Visual Studio actually determines when it should execute MSBuild for a project.
I asked basically the same question before on the MSDN forum but couldn't get a clear answer.
See this suggestion on Microsoft Connect.
Basically you need to set DisableFastUpToDateCheck property to true to disable the fast-up-to-date check.
Just add to your vcxproj or your targets file:
<PropertyGroup>
<DisableFastUpToDateCheck>true</DisableFastUpToDateCheck>
</PropertyGroup>
I found an answer by looking into the book "Inside the Microsoft Build Engine, Second Edition".
Note: I also updated the same in my question in the MSDN forum but I will mainly duplicate the text here again for completeness.
On page 280 they actually saying that the IDE does a "fast up-to-date check" on the project-level. It only spawns a project build and does a more fine-grained check on the individual tasks if this rough project-level check fails.
When running MSBuild from the command line however there is always a fine-grained up-to-date check on the individual tools.
So the IDE only seems to do this fast check on the files which are added to the projects directly and set as one of the "Input File" types.
In my opinion this is not a good design. I would prefer that the IDE is only used to edit the MSBuild project files and then just invokes MSBuild to do the up-to-date check. This would make it much clearer.
I can understand that in a solution with a lot of projects it can make the up-to-date check much faster but there should be at least an option to disable the fast up-to-date check. I was checking the IDE if there is a way to disable this behavior but could not find anything.
The solution suggested here actually works and I am using it at the moment. But I added several custom targets for different kinds of custom files. If I add a new custom file I should never forget to set it to "Custom Build Tool" otherwise the incremental build for this file will not work.
I guess a solution would be to make a full build customization for my custom files and use specific file extensions for them so Visual Studio will automatically detect them when I add them to the project and sets the right Item Type.