For a long time i was programming in Visual Studio 2010 in C#. Really good thing there was extensive documentation in Lntellisense. Lately i have decided to switch to C++ Win32 (which i believe is Native C++, am I right?). I have then spotted Intellisense is only showing functions' declarations (with no descriptions and with no parameter descriptions). It really makes programming hard as it is hard for me to remember all of the functions' parameters.
So the is: is there any way to make Intellisense to show documentation and parameter list descriptions for C++ win32 just like it was in C#?
If there is no such way, so is there way to provide my own XML documentation for existing win32 functions for C++? I could then write documentation for my most used functions for myself, which would be really helpful.
I have also noticed typing three slashes before function declaration does nothing (in C# it was used to write XML documentation for specified objecT). Is there any way to bring back such functionality?
You can try using Visual Assist X for better intellisense. It's a commercial tool (I'm not affiliated with them but I've been using it for a while). It provides features for most of the things you asked for through enhanced intellisense and macros / shortcuts.
For the most part I like it but there are some annoying issues with it that I had to learn to live with. Support is all right but every once in a while they break something that used to work before.
Related
I am new to C++ Builder. I am trying out the XE4 version, but it doesn't seem to have autocompletion for include or checking and underlining a bad syntax like for example VS does. So I can put any rubbish and the editor doesn't indicate in any way that you made a mistake in your code. And as for auto completing include: when including headers it doesn't indicate anything if the headers exists. Does any one knows if these 2 features should work in C++ Builder XE4 and you just need to switch them on somewhere or they don't exist in this IDE ?
Thanks
I haven't used C++ Builder XE4 ... but on earlier versions, you could go into Tools > Options > Editor Options > Code Insight.
Q: Does that option exist in XE4? Does it help?
ALSO: http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE4/en/Code_Completion
I have the same problems for years now. It's only my personal opinion, but I think this kind of things are broken in C++Builder. The main IDE / programming language is Delphi / Object Pascal. They work and write primary with this one and make all kind of wrappers, etc. for C++ afterwards. In Delphi everything works normally. In C++ autocomplation DOES work, but seldom. Sometimes it pops up and sometimes not. I never managed to get syntax checking to work in realtime. Only after compilation the checking starts... sometimes. There are other things which don't work too, like the Refactoring feature which I use (in Delphi) to find and add missing libraries/headers to the "uses" list. This worked partly in previous C++Builder XE versions but doesn't work at all now. Also, all this features seems to be much slower in C++Builder.
That's sad. I liked the solid functionality in Borland's products, like in C++Builder 6. The documentation system (help) worked there wonderfully too. In Delphi / C++Builder it is slow and incomplete, because it is made with one of the worst documentation systems at all: Microsoft Document Explorer. :-(
I have found the site: http://studiostyl.es/ which specializes in Visual Studio 2010 themes. However, it appears that all of these themes are built with C# and .NET development in mind.
I am currently trying to get into some C++ programming and couldn't find anything on the subject of special themes for C++. Right now, almost all of my C++ code is a plain color and it looks like I might as well be writing it in notepad.
It may even be that I have my settings messed up and that those themes from studiostyles are supposed to be for all languages; I just started using Visual Studio.
Thanks for any replies.
No, the problem is that Visual Studio simply doesn't have anywhere near the built-in syntax highlighting support for C++ as it does for C# or VB.NET. Some syntax highlighting does work. For example, strings, comments, preprocessor directives, operators, numbers, and the built-in keywords all get their own colors. But a lot of your code will indeed be in one color ("Identifiers") if you don't lift a finger.
As Jerry suggests, Visual Assist X offers far better syntax highlighting than the default. But it's not free.
If you're like me and looking for a low-budget solution, you can define your own keywords. This will at least make them show up in the color earmarked for "User Keywords". The link explains what you'll need to do in more detail, but it's really as simple as placing a plain-text file named "usertype.dat" in the Visual Studio application folder, and typing each of the custom keywords that you want to appear highlighted in their own color on a separate line. You'll have to restart the IDE for your changes to take effect.
Since you're using VS 2010, another free solution is the Highlighterr for Visual C++ extension. This is one step up from defining your own keywords, and gets a little fancier with syntax highlighting. It takes advantage of the new Intellisense support in VS 2010 to turn on highlighting for classes, structs, macros, and typedefs. I haven't installed it yet myself because I'm still doing C++ development in VS 2008, but I'd very much like to try it out.
Get Visual Assist X and don't look back.
Edit: There is also Refactor! for C++. As you can guess from the name, it's oriented primarily toward refactoring code, but if memory serves can also do some colorizing and such. I haven't used it recently enough to say much more than that (I've used VA-X for years, and a couple of years ago decided to look at alternatives, but after a month or two of testing, decided to stick with VA-X).
I've recently started to learn C++ and am completely confused with the choices of IDEs and compilers out there. I am competent with interpreted languages and like the simplicity of using any IDE or text editor and then running the interpreter from the command line. Everything works as I expect, regardless of the IDE used, because I use the same interpreter each time.
Now that I have started learning C++ I am overwhelmed by the choice of different compilers and more importantly, their differences. It seems that things will be simpler for me (not necessarily easier) if, while learning, I use a text editor and a compiler that I run from the command line. I have a basic understanding of how compiling and linking works and I understand the role of header files.
Firstly, are there any books or websites that teach C++ from this approach? (IDE-less)
Many books try to point out the differences between IDEs and compilers by selecting two and comparing them, which confuses me.
Secondly, how should I set up my workflow? (Ignore the choice of text editor, I am talking about compilers, linkers etc.) I am struggling to understand what differences different compilers have and so please bear this in mind when answering. It seems like the most popular compilers are g++ and CL.
Similar question but I am more interested in why some programs will work with some compilers and not others: C++ Compiler for Windows without IDE?
Further information: I am developing on Windows and from what I understand, it seems that there is 'pure' C++ and then C++ that is somehow related to windows, is this Visual C++? I would like to write programs that make use of Windows features but I want to know when I am using windows features and when I am writting code that would work on any platform.
Update: So it seems that I shouldn't be worrying about compilers when I am just starting out. The reason for me wanting to understand the differences is because I don't want to write code for a specific compiler and get into bad habits. Is this a non-issue?
Firstly, are there any books or websites that teach C++ from this approach? (IDE-less)
Yes, definitely. Stroustrup's book has already been mentioned. For learning C++ I'd also recommend two other books: If you like thorough explanations and don't shy away from 1000 pages, look at Lippman et al. If you rather like a short introduction and don't fear a steep learning curve, look at Koenig/Moo. Both are excellent books. (BTW, a good place to look for good books has always been the book review section at the ACCU.)
As for which tool chain you want to use: If you rather have a standalone editor and invoke the compiler from the command line, you can do this with either GCC or VC. This approach has the advantage that it is more unlikely to lure you into using something proprietary (like C++/CLI). If you would like to try an IDE, VC Express is fine, once you're past setting up a new C++ project. Of course, the number of options you can tweak for a new project can be very overwhelming. But on the other hand you get things like an integrated debugger. Note that there are other integrated solutions, too. The most mature and prominent is probably eclipse.
Edit: If you don't mind spending a little money, look at Comeau. It's not free, but it's not expensive either and it's usually considered to be the most standard-conforming C++ compiler around and has excellent error messages. (You can test-drive it at the website.) Note that it emits C code, though. That means you have to have another compiler to create an executable program. But both GCC and VC Express will do, so there's no other cost. (Note that using VC you will get Dinkumware's std lib implementation, which is also considered to be a very good one.)
Use MinGW - it's a command-line C++ development toolchain that allows you create Windows applications. The SO link you quoted seems to have all the relevant details, so I don't really understand why you posted this question.
Firstly, are there any books or websites that teach C++ from this approach? (IDE-less)
Start from reading The C++ Programming Language book. Written by Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, this is the world's most trusted and widely read book on C++.
Take a look also at Programming — Principles and Practice Using C++. It is an introduction to programming for people who has never programmed before. It will also be useful for people who have programmed a bit and want to improve their style and technique - or simply learn modern C++.
I am developing on Windows and from
what I understand, it seems that there
is 'pure' C++ and then C++ that is
somehow related to windows, is this
Visual C++? I would like to write
programs that make use of Windows
features but I want to know when I am
using windows features and when I am
writting code that would work on any
platform.
MS Visual C++ 2008 Express is a free IDE aimed at folks like you, it's available by download from Microsoft, I recommend you try it out.
Visual C++ is the name of the IDE program package. Installing it installs many things including the compiler cl.exe, which can compile, depending on settings, program written in either the C, C++, or C++/CLI programming language (for the .Net framework).
You can use the compiler on the command prompt without the IDE by (for example) selecting Start > Programs > Microsoft Visual Studio X > Visual Studio Tools > Visual Studio X Command Prompt. This execute a script which sets various environment settings needed to compile programs before giving you the command prompt.
On Windows I'd recommend you Visual Studio Express - it's free and is widely accepted by C++ programmers on Windows platform.
Since you're starting to learn language, don't bother yourself with differences, advantages/disadvantages of compilers and IDEs - leave it when you'll be more proficient with the language and will be involved in writing real program.
I actually suggest IDE approach, Microsoft Visual C++ Express Edition should do the trick. Excluding some fancy syntax most C++ compilers behave the same way. C++ is a language that has a very small standard library (covering mostly I/O functions, basic math etc..) this is probably what you refer as pure C++. For something more advanced you'll have to use system libraries.. In example if you want to write windows gui application you'll have to include windows.h header file which is platform specific and exists only on windows compilers..
If you won't use an IDE, you definitely want to use Makefiles to organize your workflow... and you can make easily from emacs or vim.
Anyway, may I suggest you to use a very simple, almost non intrusive IDE, that could be great for learning purposes: http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
It comes with the MinGW compiler bundled, so it's just install and go.
I'd say to start out with Visual Studio. This is a great IDE for programming C++ on windows, might as well use it when it can speed up certain things a lot.
The differences between compilers aren't that huge - if you can write solid code in VS then it shouldn't be a problem to figure out how to get your code working in GCC/G++.
As for books; Exceptional C++ by Herb Sutter and The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup are a great read.
Visual Studio is the way to go when developing for Windows.
When programming in C++ in Visual Studio 2008, why is there no functionality like that seen in the refactor menu when using C#?
I use Rename constantly and you really miss it when it's not there. I'm sure you can get plugins that offer this, but why isn't it integrated in to the IDE when using C++? Is this due to some gotcha in the way that C++ must be parsed?
The syntax and semantics of C++ make it incredibly difficult to correctly implement refactoring functionality. It's possible to implement something relatively simple to cover 90% of the cases, but in the remaining 10% of cases that simple solution will horribly break your code by changing things you never wanted to change.
Read http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/defective.html#defect-8 for a brief discussion of the difficulties that any refactoring code in C++ has to deal with.
Microsoft has evidently decided to punt on this particular feature for C++, leaving it up to third-party developers to do what they can.
I'm not sure why it is like this, but third-party tools exist that help. For example, right now I'm evaluating Visual Assist X (by Whole Tomato). We're also using Visual Studio 2005.
devexpress provides Add-in Refactor! for C++ for VS2005 and VS2008.
Don't feel hard-done-by, it isn't available in VB.Net either :)
C++ is a HARD language to parse compared with C# (VB too unless you've "Option Explicit" and "Option Strict" switched on, it's difficult to tell exactly what any line of code is doing out of a MUCH larger context).
At a guess it could have something to do with the "difficulty" of providing it.
P.S. I marked my answer as community wiki because I know it's not providing any useful information.
Eclipse does few c++ refactorings including 'rename'. Check out this question here on StackOverflow.
It is also possible to use Microsoft compiler with Eclipse. Check out here.
Try Eclipse and see if it fits for you.
There is a lot of fud and confusion around this issue. This amazing youtube video should clear up why C++ refactoring is hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbDzTM21BQ
tl;dr Google refactors their entire 100 million line C++ codebase by using a compiler (Clang + LLVM) that allows access to its intermediate format.
Bottom line, third parties are screwed here, there is no realistic way for them to refactor VS C++ unless MS outputs intermediate results the same way. If you think of it from the programming problem perspective this is obvious: in order to refactor VS C++ you have to be able to compile C++ the exact same way VS does with the same bugs, limitations, flaws, hacks, shortcuts, workarounds, etc. The usual suspects like Coderush and Resharper do not have the budget for that kind of insanity although apparently they are trying but it has been years...
http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper-cpp/
Update 2016: Resharper now does a decent job at C++ refactor. Limitations are purely for large / gigantic projects.
MS has finally done this: https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/C9-GoingNative/GoingNative-33-C-Refactoring-in-Visual-Studio-2015#time=04m37s
They have started doing this about 10 years ago, I remember watching ms channel9 long ago.
I've been using Visual Assist X with visual studio for about one year and a half. It's an incredible tool that helps you a lot with ordinary C++ code, but it doesn't perform very well on templated code. For instance, you if have a sophisticated policy-based template design, it won't know how to rename your variables, and the project won't compile anymore.
Install plugin which enables you that functionality: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/164904b2-3b47-417f-9b6b-fdd35757d194
I'd like to point out that Qt Creator (a C++ IDE which is compatible with VC++ libraries and build system) provides symbol renaming that works very well:
You can rename symbols in all files in a project. When you rename a class, you can also change filenames that match the class name.
Qt Creator - Refactoring: Renaming Symbols
Qt Creator's rename functionality gives you a list of the symbol references it found and an opportunity to exclude any of them before performing the replace. So if it gets a symbol reference wrong, you can exclude it.
So C++ symbol renaming is possible. Coming to VS from Qt Creator I feel your pain, to the point where I've considered converting preexisting VS projects of considerable size to use Qt Creator instead.
I don't buy the argument that this is specifically hard in C++. In addition to the fact that it already works very well in Qt Creator, there's the fact that the compiler and linker can find and match symbols: If that wasn't possible you couldn't build your application.
In fact, languages like Python that are dynamically typed also have renaming tools. If you can create such a tool for a language where there are no explicit references to variable type you can definitely do it for C++.
Case in point:
... Rope, a python refactoring library... I tried it for a few renames, and that definitely worked as expected.
Stack Overflow - What refactoring tools do you use for Python?
Well in spite of comments by all you experts I totally disagree that refactoring support issue has something to do with C++ language semantics or any language semantics for that matter. Except the compiler builder themselves don't choose to implement one in first case due to their own reasons or constraints whatsoever they maybe.
And offense not to be taken but I am sorry to say Mr jsb the above link you provided to support your case (i.e of yosefk) about C++ defect is totally out of question. Its more like you providing direction to "Los angeles" when someone asked for of "San Franisco".
In my opinion raising refactoring difficulty issue for certain language is more like raising a finger on language integrity itself. Especially for languages which is sometimes just pain.... when it comes to their variable declaration and use. :) Okay! tell me how come you loose track of some node within a node tree ... eh? So what it is do with any language be it as simple as machine level code. You know you VS compiler can easily detect if some variable or routine is dead code. Got my point?
About developing third party tool. I think compiler vendors can implement it far more easily and effectively if they ever wanted to then a third party tool which will have to duplicate all the parsing database to handle it. Nowadays compiler can optimize code very efficiently at machine code level and I am hearing here that its difficult to tell how some variable is used previously. You haven't paid any real attention to inner working of compiler I suppose. What database it keep within.
And sure its the almost same database that IDE use for all such similar purposes. In previous time compiler were just a separate entity and IDE just a Text Editor with some specialization but as times goes by the gap between compiler and IDE Editor become less and its directly started working on similar parsed database. Which makes it possible to handle all those intellisense and refactoring or other syntax related issues more effectively. With all precompile things and JIT compiling this gap is almost negligent. So it almost make sense to use same database for both purpose or else your memory demand go higher due to duplication.
You all are programmers - I am not! And you guys seems to be having difficulty visualizing how refactoring can be implemented for C++ or any language that I can't comprehend. Its just all about for something you have to put more effort for some less depending on how heavy is a person you trying push.
Anyway way VS a nice IDE especially when it comes to C#.
Ok, I'm developing an application that has been in pretty much continous development over the last 16 years, from C in DOS, through various flavours of C++ and now is largely based around C++ with MFC and StingRay GUIs and various other SDKs.
While I use VS 2005 for the release builds, I still use MSVC 6 for much of the GUI building, simply because ClassWizard is so much quicker in this environment than the weak equivalent tools that followed. Note that I am using ClassWizard to automatically generate code for my own user defined types (see Custom DDXs) and I like to add a lot of member variables and methods in one go. Creating them one at a time as per later versions of Visual Studio for me is a big backward step. At the same time, working with multiple IDEs is also a pain.
My question is in two parts;
Is there any way of getting ClassWizard to work is VS 2005 or VS 2008?
Is there any drop in replacement, or alternative IDE, that provides similar levels of productivty for old C++ hacks such as myself?
A follow up to those who are interested. ClassWizard may be re-introduced in VS2010, from Tarek Madkour [VC++ Team]
'We are considering adding the Class
Wizard back to VS10. We hope this will
make DDX/DDV function creation more
keyboard-centric just like it was in
VC6. There are some schedule
challenges that we will need to
overcome to get the feature done, but
I am optimistic that you will see it
when we ship VS10.'
Click here for the full discussion
Edit: The release notes for VS2010 confirm that MFC Class Wizard is back. So contrary to popular belief, the guys at MS do listen to their users.
Visual Studio 2010 provides a C++ IDE
experience that includes the return of
the MFC Class Wizard, the ability to
view large source files through Source
Outline, integrated quick searching to
find information without the confusion
of the current “Find In Files” method
and an easily extensible IDE model
through the new Managed Extensibility
Framework (MEF).
Agree with Shane, the CW alternative in vs2008 is shockingly poor; it makes you wonder if anybody at Microsoft still uses MFC. I’ve started bumping my estimates up just because of the generally poor afx/mfc integration. It’s just not finished and what is there is pretty buggy. Sure you can put the code in by hand, nobody is claiming its hard but seriously, its grunt code, its 2010, you just shouldn’t be writing this stuff by hand anymore.
I will suggest avoid code generation at all and use your favorite editor to manually create new code. If i understand correctly your are expert in this area and i sure you know that manually created code will be much cleaner and simpler then the generated one.
In additional the code generator is a nightmare for code reviews, it change zillions of places that should not be changed at all and it's really hard to concentrate to the meaningful changes.
IMHO.
I would also suggest you put the neccessary DDX/DDV (as well as message handling) macros (and member variables) manually into your classes. At first it seems a bit difficult to find out how and where exactly one is supposed to write the entries, but after a short while it's rather easy. I started doing that after porting a VC6 project over to VS2005, and for exactly the same reason you gave: there is no suitable replacement for ClassWizard. However, after two years I can say that I don't miss it at all anymore.
You can write click on controls on form and add variable or event handler. It is not as good as VC6 but still. I do not see any point in writing the DDX manually.