I'm tyring to refactor my code using include-what-you-use, but I need to figure out exactly which directories VS is looking in.
How do I get a listing of all include paths visible to files in my project?
If I add an incorrect include, something like "#include " I get the listing I want, but I can't copy and paste the damn thing! (and OCR doesn't seem to work).
How do I get this list?
Copy/pasting from the dialog is ok if you want to do this once manually but doesn't scale well. Since you tagged this msbuild, here's a solution using it. Create a file names showincludes.targets and paste this msbuild code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="ShowIncludes">
<Message Text="$(Include);%(ClCompile.AdditionalIncludeDirectories)"/>
</Target>
</Project>
Now to get the list of includes for any project file use
msbuild \path\to\vcxproj /p:ForceImportAfterCppTargets=\path\to\showincludes.targets /t:ShowIncludes
This will import said file into the project give, so it has access to all properties, and print out the value of the INCLUDE environment variable which is by default used by the compiler, and also the value of AdditionalIncludeDirectories which is passed to the compiler by msbuild.
Related
I'm trying to set automatically run/debug environmental variables for my project in Visual Studio.
I mean, is there any CMake or C++ code line to do this not needing to do it manually?
Here are the instructions how to do it manually (what I want to avoid).
Here there is an still unsolved question about how to do it with Cmake (seems not to be possible).
I also tried with setenv() and putenv() in different ways but it didn't work, because the main function doesn't even run until that line of code, before an error message shows up: "Some.dll was not found" and the program stops.
If your dll is one you are intending to use, this answer details how to quickly ensure it is found at runtime (putting the DLL alongside the executable)
If by 'automatic' you mean in code, you can set environment variables in code using _putenv as described in this answer similar to what you seem to be describing.
ostringstream classSize;
classSize << "classSize=" << howManyInClass;
_putenv(classSize.str().c_str());
The solution I found is base on this answer.
Steps for the solution:
Create a UserTemplate.vcxproj.user file next to the CMakeLists.txt file, with the next content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="15.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|x64'">
<LocalDebuggerEnvironment>PATH=..\Your\Path\to\Binaries;%PATH%".</LocalDebuggerEnvironment>
<DebuggerFlavor>WindowsLocalDebugger</DebuggerFlavor>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
Where ..\Your\Path\to\Binaries is the relative path to your binary
files (the two points at the beginning .. are optional, if you
want to go up in the relative directory path, you may want to use
them).
Add the next lines of code in the CMakeLists.txt file.
# Configure the template file
SET(USER_FILE main.vcxproj.user)
SET(OUTPUT_PATH ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${USER_FILE})
CONFIGURE_FILE(UserTemplate.vcxproj.user ${USER_FILE} #ONLY)
Where ProjectName is the name of the VS project where you want to define your PATH variable.
Is it somehow possible to do following:
branch.prop:
// excerpt
<PropertyGroup Label="UserMacros">
<Branch>Trunk</Branch>
</PropertyGroup>
And another property sheet, common.prop:
// excerpt
<PropertyGroup>
<OutDir>D:\output\$(Branch)\VW$(VW_VERSION)\$(KN_BUILD)\</OutDir>
<IntDir>D:\output\$(Branch)\VS_Output\$(VW_VERSION)\$(KN_BUILD)\$(ProjectName)\</IntDir>
</PropertyGroup>
Problem
The problem is, that I use both property sheets in my project and if I show my projects properties I see that it shows the correct output directory and intermediate directory (like e.g. ' D:\output\Trunk\VW2016\Debug\' ) but when I compile my project it does not work, meaning that the user macro is missing so that logs show lines like following:
Library "D:\output\\VS_Output\2016\Debug\SomeProject\SomeProject.lib" ...
Pay attention to \\ instead of \Trunk\ in the log line!
Is there some way that property sheets work with user macros defined in different property sheets? Something like nesting them e.g. or any other trick?
I want to avoid to define my output directory and intermediate directory in each project manually (which would work)...
NOT WORKING ALTERNATIVE IDEAS
use a prebuild script that reads out the current svn path and setting an environment variable => because the environment variable is only read by VS on VS start, so if the prebuild script changes it VS does not recognise this until it is restarted
Why do I need this
I need this because I'm forced quite often to switch between trunk and a branch to create a hotfix and so want to avoid long build times because of overwriting intermediate / output files...
You can import your branch.prop in common.prop, like this:
<ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets" >
<Import Project="branch.prop"/>
</ImportGroup>
There is Copy to Output Directory property for files in C# projects. But in VC++ projects it is absent. I know, that I can use Build events in VC++ and write there something like
xcopy /y /d %(FullPath) $(OutDir)
Is there a way to avoid the use of CMD (and other scripting methods)? Can msbuild do something to help in this case?
Can MSBuild do something to help in this case?
Using MSVC 2012, this worked for me:
Assumed you have a file "Data/ThisIsData.txt" in your c++ Project.
Unload the project (right click --> Unload Project).
Edit project XML (right click --> Edit .vcxproj)
Now you see the projects MSBuild file as XML in your editor.
Find "ThisIsData.txt". It should look something like:
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="Data\ThisIsData.txt" />
...
</ItemGroup>
Now add an other item group like this:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="Data\ThisIsData.txt">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
...
</ItemGroup>
Reload the project and build.
Your file "ThisIsData.txt" should get copied to $(OutDir)\Data\ThisIsData.txt.
Why duplicating the ItemGroup?
Well if you simply change the None include to a content include, the IDE does not seem to like it any more, and will not display it. So to keep a quick edit option for my data files, I decided to keep the duplicated entries.
In VS 2015 it is possible to give C projects the functionality that is in C#.
(Idea from building off of jochen's answer.)
Instead of adding another ItemGroup, modify the given itemgroup adding a CopyTo element. I.E, using his example, simply enhance the original entry to:
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="Data\ThisIsData.txt" />
<DeploymentContent>true</DeploymentContent>
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
...
</ItemGroup>
No other ItemGroup required. By adding the CopyTo element, you add an "Included In Project" property.
In Visual Studio 2017 you can do this in the IDE. I am not sure about earlier versions.
Simply add the file as an included project file so it shows in the Solution Explorer. Then right click on the file and select the Properties menu.
Change the Content to "Yes" and change the Item Type to "Copy file"
If you look at the changes it made to the project file you can see it added this:
<ItemGroup>
<CopyFileToFolders Include="Filename.txt">
<DeploymentContent>true</DeploymentContent>
<FileType>Document</FileType>
</CopyFileToFolders>
</ItemGroup>
It depends on what version of Visual Studio you are using. Format of VC++ project file in Visual Studio 2008 is not MSBuild and so using xcopy in PostBuildStep is a good choice.
VC++ project in Visual Studio 2010 has MSBuild format. Thus, there is functionality of MSBuild Copy task.
Below is a sample:
<Copy
SourceFiles="%(FullPath)"
DestinationFolder="$(OutDir)"
/>
If the destination directory does not exist, it is created automatically
An MSDN Copy task reference is here
Following henri-socha's answer about VS2015 (and probably VS2013 and VS2012, or anything using MSBuild style projects), the ItemGroup item type is important.
Specifically <Text> items do not seem to be copied, whereas <Content> items do.
So, for a project directory Data containing a text file ThisIsData.txt, this will create a subdirectory Data under the $(OutDir) directory and copy the file ThisIsData.txt from the project into it if it's newer:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="Data\ThisIsData.txt">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
This won't, although it is what the Visual Studio IDE will insert if you add the text file to your project, and set the Content property to True.
<ItemGroup>
<Text Include="Data\ThisIsData.txt">
<DeploymentContent>true</DeploymentContent>
</Text>
</ItemGroup>
So in other words you need to add the file via the IDE to make it realise the file is included in the project (which adds <Text> tag ItemGroup), and then open the project in a text editor and add the <Content> tag ItemGroup to get it to do what you want.
I'm not sure what the <DeploymentContent> tag actually does. It may be a remnant since the only MSDN reference I could find considers it archived: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa712517.aspx
In visual studio 2019 after setting the file as "Include in project" you can edit the properties an select as Item Type "Copy file" (as shown in https://i.stack.imgur.com/vac2b.png)
This avoids the manual vcxproj file edition.
You can specify copying in the project file as Jeff G answered in another question:
In the *.vcxproj file, change:
<Text Include="Filename.txt" />
to:
<Content Include="Filename.txt">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
Then in the *.vcxproj.filters file, change:
<Text Include="Filename.txt">
<Filter>Resource Files</Filter>
</Text>
to:
<Content Include="Filename.txt">
<Filter>Resource Files</Filter>
</Content>
where the <Text ...> tag is for specified text files (it'll be <Image ...> for image files etc.)
If it's a COM dll, you can add it to the root of your project, mark it as 'Content' and set copy to output directory to 'Always'. I had to do this for signature capture COM assembly.
I'm managing a C++ project in VS2010 and want to have ALL .cpp files run through an external tool before going to the C++ compiler. All signs seem to indicate this is possible. See, for example, here.
Since this will happen over multiple projects, it makes sense to put this functionality in a property sheet and then just importing this property sheet everywhere. Before I touched the property sheet, it looked like this in its entirety:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<_ProjectFileVersion>10.0.30319.1</_ProjectFileVersion>
<ExtensionsToDeleteOnClean>...</ExtensionsToDeleteOnClean>
<CustomBuildBeforeTargets>ClCompile</CustomBuildBeforeTargets>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemDefinitionGroup>
<ClCompile>
<AdditionalIncludeDirectories>...</AdditionalIncludeDirectories>
<ForcedIncludeFiles>%(ForcedIncludeFiles)</ForcedIncludeFiles>
</ClCompile>
<Link>
<AdditionalDependencies>...</AdditionalDependencies>
</Link>
<Outputs>...</Outputs>
</CustomBuildStep>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>
</Project>
As per the above linked document, I have added the following lines:
<Project>
<PropertyGroup>
...
<CustomBuildBeforeTargets>ClCompile</CustomBuildBeforeTargets>
</PropertyGroup>
...
<ItemGroup>
<CustomBuild Include="*.cpp">
<Message>Running Custom Build Step</Message>
<Command>dummy</Command>
<Outputs>dummy</Outputs>
</CustomBuild>
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
This appears to have no effect, and my custom build tool never runs before ClCompile. I have tried various ways of moving things around and renaming tags (the Xml editor complains that CustomBuild isn't even valid according to the schema, for example), but nothing works.
What am I doing wrong?
Although this is a very old question, I will attempt to answer it.
The Include attribute expects to find *.cpp files in the Project directory. If there are no .cpp files in the Project directory, then this CustomBuild "Task" will never kick in.
What the OP could have done was
<CustomBuild Include="**\*.cpp">
<Message>Custombuild kicking in</Message>
<Command>echo %(Identity)</Command>
<Outputs>dummy</Outputs>
</CustomBuild>
instead of
<CustomBuild Include="*.cpp">
...
and he would have performed the CustomBuild action on all the .cpp files in all the subdirectories of the project directory, and not just the .cpp files waiting to be compiled.
If the .cpp files are not availble under the Project directory (can happen when such a project directory structure is used) then the OP must explicitly point to the right "root" directory.
Alternatively you can save yourself wildcard usage by simply running an Exec task on every included ClCompile.
<Target Name="ProcessClCompileFiles" BeforeTargets="ClCompile" Condition="'#(ClCompile)'!=''">
<Message Text="== Starting processing cpp files ==" Importance="High"/>
<Exec Command="echo processing %(ClCompile.filename)%(ClCompile.extension) & ////YOUR COMMAND HERE////" />
</Target>
As a note. This requires the ClCompile itemgroup to be initialised before this Target. if you were to create a target that dynamically adds ClCompile, you'd have to ensure that this happens before this Target is called.
Another note is that these Exec tasks will always run if there are any items in the ClCompile itemgroup. If you have a condition where it should skip them (eg, already processed), use Condition="A=B"
For easy reference, here's how to validate it hasn't created a file and if it created a file; if the file is out of date:
Condition="!Exists('$(OutDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)') OR ($([System.DateTime]::Parse('%(ClCompile.ModifiedTime)').Ticks) > $([System.IO.File]::GetLastWriteTime('$(OutDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)').Ticks))"
I've read about the use of "Custom.Before.Microsoft.Common.targets" and "Custom.After.Microsoft.Common.targets" in order to execute a custom target before/after every project build and I would like to use this technique in order to change version info while building on our TeamCity build server.
The problem is that although it works for C# projects, it doesn't seem to work for native C++ projects.
After some digging around in the Microsoft.Cpp.targets file I found out that for native C++ projects this seems to be implemented through setting $(ForceImportBeforeCppTargets) and $(ForceImportAfterCppTargets).
I can't seem to find a single piece of information on the web about this technique for native C++ apps though, so I'm asking if I'm looking in the right direction or not.
Any help is appreciated.
For VC++ projects it is a bit different. You define a file to be imported either at the beginning or at the end of the project. To use this approach you need to define values for the properties ForceImportBeforeCppTargets or ForceImportAfterCppTargets. For example if you want a file to be included at the beginning of the project you can pass in the value at the command line. For example I just created a dummy VC++ project named CppTets01. Then I created the two sample files below.
Before.proj
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="CustomTargetInBefore" AfterTargets="Build">
<Message Text="From CustomTargetInBefore" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
</Project>
After.proj
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="CustomTargetInAfter" AfterTargets="Build">
<Message Text="From CustomTargetInAfter" Importance="high"/>
</Target>
</Project>
Then I executed the following command:
msbuild CppTest01.vcxproj
/p:ForceImportBeforeCppTargets="C:\Temp\_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01\Before.proj";
ForceImportAfterCppTargets="C:\Temp\_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01\After.proj"
The result was
C:\Temp_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01>msbuild CppTest01.vcxproj /p:ForceImportBeforeCppTargets="C:\Temp_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\C
ppTest01\Before.proj";ForceImportAfterCppTargets="C:\Temp_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01\After.proj"
Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 4.0.30319.1
[Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 4.0.30319.1]
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.
Build started 10/18/2010 8:32:55 AM.
Project "C:\Temp\_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01\CppTest01.vcxproj" on node 1 (default targets).
InitializeBuildStatus:
Creating "Debug\CppTest01.unsuccessfulbuild" because "AlwaysCreate" was specified.
ClCompile:
All outputs are up-to-date.
All outputs are up-to-date.
ManifestResourceCompile:
All outputs are up-to-date.
Link:
All outputs are up-to-date.
Manifest:
All outputs are up-to-date.
FinalizeBuildStatus:
Deleting file "Debug\CppTest01.unsuccessfulbuild".
Touching "Debug\CppTest01.lastbuildstate".
CustomTargetInBefore:
From CustomTargetInBefore
CustomTargetInAfter:
From CustomTargetInAfter
Done Building Project "C:\Temp\_NET\ThrowAway\CppTest01\CppTest01\CppTest01.vcxproj" (default targets).
Build succeeded.
0 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:00:00.21
As you can see from the output the targets were successfully injected into the build process. If you want to relate this back to Custom.Before.Microsoft.Common.targets and Custom.Before.Microsoft.Common.targets then you should know that the technique used there is a bit different. Specifically if you create those files they are automatically imported into every C#/VB.NET project. In this case you have to set this property. You really have two options here:
You can set this property as an environment variable
You can use another technique, ImportBefore & ImportAfter which is specific to VC++
For #1 let me explain a bit. In MSBuild when you access a property with the syntax $(PropName) then if a property with the name PropName doesn't exist MSBuild will look up in the environment variables to see if such a value exists, if it does then that value is returned. So if you have a build server in which you want to include a file for each VC++ build, then just create those properties as environment variables. Now for the other technique.
ImportBefore/ImportAfter
In VC++ a new concept is introduced. In Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.targets you can see the declaration at the top of the .targets file.
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Platforms\Win32\ImportBefore\*.targets"
Condition="Exists('$(VCTargetsPath)\Platforms\Win32\ImportBefore')" />
Then there is one towards the bottom
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Platforms\Win32\ImportAfter\*.targets"
Condition="Exists('$(VCTargetsPath)\Platforms\Win32\ImportAfter')" />
A similar import declaration exists for the other target platforms as well. Take a look at the files at %ProgramFiles32%\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Platforms\ for the specific names.
With this technique if you want a file to be imported then simply create a file that ends with .targets and place it into the appropriate folder. The advantage of this is that it will be imported into every VC++ build for that platform, and that you can create many different files. The drawback is that you have to place them in those specific folders. That's the main difference between both techniques. With this first technique you can specify the file location via property and its not automatically included for every build, but for the second approach it is but you cannot change the location
You can also add project content into one of *.props files from directory %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\
It make same effect.