I wanted to have one project which would contain common header files that could be used by other projects in the same solution (Unfortunately I cannot accomplish this task). In order to accomplish this task here is what I tried
1-Created a new C++ console application called common.
2-From the properties of this project I changed the configuration type to static Library.
3-I added a simple header file commonheader.h to the project having a class person and built it as a result I got
C:\Users\Raj\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Ctest\Debug\Common.lib
4-Now in order to use that header file from a different project I created another project
called Test. And in the properties of test I added Common as a reference
5-I then tried to access the person class however the VS2010 still complains that it cannot find the person class.
Any suggestions on what I might be doing wrong ? . I added the path
C:\Users\Raj\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Ctest\Debug\ in addition include addition files of the Test project. Any ideas how I can access the person class
AFAIK the .lib files only contains the compiled source of your implementations, you still need to include the header files themselves to get access to the interface
Related
We have a solution with projects that is generate by cmake.
There is src folder that has all the source code. Proj_Service1, Proj_Service2 and Proj_Service3 reference same Main.cpp and Base_Service.cpp files. In addition, each project has reference to its own ServiceX.cpp file. All projects are console projects (exe). See solution structure below:
-Solution
----Proj_Service1
-------Main.cpp
-------Base_Service.cpp
-------Service1.cpp
----Proj_Service2
-------Main.cpp
-------Base_Service.cpp
-------Service2.cpp
----Proj_Service3
-------Main.cpp
-------Base_Service.cpp
-------Service3.cpp
The reason the structure above in that way is becuase it was decided in the company that each project should include only files that relevant to the project.
I want to add Test_Proj project that will test one of the services or/and all of them using googletest.
When I try to instantiate ServiceX.cpp in Test_Proj, I obviously get linker errors since Proj_ServiceX is not lib and therefore I cannot link to it.
What I thought to do is to create an additional project of type "lib", move Service1.cpp, Service2.cpp and Service3.cpp files to it and make all projects reference it. Basically:
-Solution
----Service_Proj
-------Base_Service.cpp
-------Service1.cpp
-------Service2.cpp
-------Service3.cpp
----Proj_Service1
-------[Reference to Service_Proj]
----Proj_Service2
-------[Reference to Service_Proj]
----Proj_Service3
-------[Reference to Service_Proj]
----Test_Proj
-------[Reference to Service_Proj]
Questions:
Is the solution I suggested above is the only way?
If there is a different, better approach, even the one that requires using other tools, I'll be glad to hear.
I am writing my own C++ project library in visual studio (couple of projects that consist of *cpp, *.h files, NOT an actual .lib file). Each of these projects is located in single Visual Studio "solution".
When I needed to use a code from one project in another, I just copied it. But that was short term solution. Now my library has grown both in size and functionality, and because of code duplication I ended up with dozens of different versions of the same file.
That single solution serve me as a playground // test ground for new ideas. I am developing projects not libs. Currently it holds about 50 projects.
I am working on visual studio 2015.
Lets say I have setup like this:
DataIO project located in */Solution/#DataInputAndOutput/DataIO/DataIO.h
consist both of DataIO.h and DataIO.cpp
Foo project located in */Solution/#Foo/Foo/Foo.h
consist both of Foo.h and Foo.cpp
DataIO.h:
#pragma once
#ifndef __DATA_IO_H__
#define __DATA_IO_H__
// ...
extern FILE * const logFile;
// Bunch of function declarations
#endif // !__DATA_IO_H__
I know that this is not a "Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example" but my problem lies in logistic of things, not things themselves. And I believe that my description is sufficient.
Problem #1: In Foo.cpp I #include "DataIO.h" (with is possible because i added additional include directories in Foo project setup) But whenever I try to compile Foo I am given following error: unresolved external symbol for every function declaration inside DataIO.h and that one external variable. How Can I Fix this problem? Do I need to create a DataIO.lib to keep things straight?
I tried to add DataIO.h and DataIO.cpp into Foo project directly (NOT copy it, just add it into project) but that seems like a bad idea...
I recommend trying out the new "Shared Items Project" in VS2015+. A Shared Items Project is literally just a set of files. The project itself doesn't build anything. In fact, there are no (or almost no) compilation or linkage settings in a Shared Items Project -- those settings come the the project that references the Shared Items Project. When you reference a Shared Items Project from some other project FOO, the build of FOO happens as if the files of the Shared Items Project are items of the referencing project.
Short of that, you can set up your shared projects to build .libs and then use Project References within Visual Studio to automatically set up the linkage. I think you have to manually set up the include paths when doing this, though.
The best way to do this is to factor out common code into a library so the common code resides in one place. And then have your projects use the library - via an include file and linking with said library.
I want to create a MFC extention dll, my problem is the class that I want use in client include some header file that implemented in my project, now how can use it in client?
For example the header file class that want to export from my dll is like below
#include "classme1.h"
#include "classme2.h"
class AFX_EXT_CLASS dllclass
{
...
//anthor function
};
When I include this header file in client, the client project has error and need two file "classme1.h" and "classme2.h".
What I do to solve my problem?
Copy the header files in a common place were both projects can read them.
You can define the path in the #include statement, or you can change the project settings for the C++ pre processor to search the files in different additional directories.
Project settings -> C/C++ -> General -> Additional Include Directories.
For complex projects I very often use the Property Manager. You can define specific settings and add them to your current project. It is just a file that allows you easily to customize projects.
Remember that you also need a reference to the LIB file. It must bes specified in the linker section. Or must be added to the project too. (see tip above).
Alternative to xMRi's suggestion is to refactor your extension DLL to remove the need for a client to include your private header files.
Read about PIMPL Idiom (Pointer to IMPLementation), for example here: Why should the "PIMPL" idiom be used?
In a large C++ solution, is there a best/standard way to separate the include files necessary to build an intermediary DLL and the include files which will be used by the DLL clients ?
We have grouped all the include files in a folder called Interface (for DLL interface), but there the customers have to either include the Interface folder as a default include folder or type the full name as:
#include "ProjectName/Interface/myinterface.h"
Wouldn't it be better to create a separate folder called exports where I would create a folder called ProjectName and put the include files there ? So that the customers would be typing:
#include "ProjectName/myinterface.h"
If I do the thing right above, then should I keep the files within the solution and produce a post build event (I use Visual Studio 2k5) to copy the files into the "export" folder (/ProjectName/) ? Or is it better to just include directly the files from this folder within my project (this is more direct and has less chances to cause maintenance issues ?
I am more looking for advice than for a definite solution.
Thank you for reading this !
Anthony
If an interface could consist of more than one header,
#include "ProjectName/Interface/header1.h"
seems better to me.
In my place we have a big C++ code base and I think there's a problem how header files are used.
There're many Visual Studio project, but the problem is in concept and is not related to VS. Each project is a module, performing particular functionality. Each project/module is compiled to library or binary. Each project has a directory containing all source files - *.cpp and *.h. Some header files are API of the module (I mean the to the subset of header files declaring API of the created library), some are internal to it.
Now to the problem - when module A needs to work with module B, than A adds B's source directory to include search path. Therefore all B's module internal headers are seen by A at compilation time.
As a side effect, developer is not forced to concentrate what is the exact API of each module, which I consider a bad habit anyway.
I consider an options how it should be on the first place. I thought about creating in
each project a dedicated directory containing interface header files only. A client module wishing to use the module is permitted to include the interface directory only.
Is this approach ok? How the problem is solved in your place?
UPD On my previous place, the development was done on Linux with g++/gmake and we indeed used to install API header files to a common directory is some of answers propose. Now we have Windows (Visual Studio)/Linux (g++) project using cmake to generate project files. How I force the prebuild install of API header files in Visual Studio?
Thanks
Dmitry
It sounds like your on the right track. Many third party libraries do this same sort of thing. For example:
3rdParty/myLib/src/ -contains the headers and source files needed to compile the library
3rdParty/myLib/include/myLib/ - contains the headers needed for external applications to include
Some people/projects just put the headers to be included by external apps in /3rdParty/myLib/include, but adding the additional myLib directory can help to avoid name collisions.
Assuming your using the structure: 3rdParty/myLib/include/myLib/
In Makefile of external app:
---------------
INCLUDE =-I$(3RD_PARTY_PATH)/myLib/include
INCLUDE+=-I$(3RD_PARTY_PATH)/myLib2/include
...
...
In Source/Headers of the external app
#include "myLib/base.h"
#include "myLib/object.h"
#include "myLib2/base.h"
Wouldn't it be more intuitive to put the interface headers in the root of the project, and make a subfolder (call it 'internal' or 'helper' or something like that) for the non-API headers?
Where I work we have a delivery folder structure created at build time. Header files that define libraries are copied out to a include folder. We use custom build scripts that let the developer denote which header files should be exported.
Our build is then rooted at a substed drive this allows us to use absolute paths for include directories.
We also have a network based reference build that allows us to use a mapped drive for include and lib references.
UPDATE: Our reference build is a network share on our build server. We use a reference build script that sets up the build environment and maps(using net use) the named share on the build server(i.e. \BLD_SRV\REFERENCE_BUILD_SHARE). Then during a weekly build(or manually) we set the share(using net share) to point to the new build.
Our projects then a list of absolute paths for include and lib references.
For example:
subst'ed local build drive j:\
mapped drive to reference build: p:\
path to headers: root:\build\headers
path to libs: root:\build\release\lib
include path in project settings j:\build\headers; p:\build\headers
lib path in project settings j:\build\release\lib;p:\build\release\lib
This will take you local changes first, then if you have not made any local changes(or at least you haven't built them) it will use the headers and libs from you last build on the build server.
I've seen problems like this addressed by having a set of headers in module B that get copied over to the release directory along with the lib as part of the build process. Module A then only sees those headers and never has access to the internals of B. Usually I've only seen this in a large project that was released publicly.
For internal projects it just doesn't happen. What usually happens is that when they are small it doesn't matter. And when they grow up it's so messy to separate it out no one wants to do it.
Typically I just see an include directory that all the interface headers get piled into. It certainly makes it easy to include headers. People still have to think about which modules they're taking dependencies on when they specify the modules for the linker.
That said, I kinda like your approach better. You could even avoid adding these directories to the include path, so that people can tell what modules a source file depends on just by the relative paths in the #includes at the top.
Depending on how your project is laid out, this can be problematic when including them from headers, though, since the relative path to a header is from the .cpp file, not from the .h file, so the .h file doesn't necessarily know where its .cpp files are.
If your projects have a flat hierarchy, however, this will work. Say you have
base\foo\foo.cpp
base\bar\bar.cpp
base\baz\baz.cpp
base\baz\inc\baz.h
Now any header file can include
#include "..\baz\inc\baz.h
and it will work since all the cpp files are one level deeper than base.
In a group I had been working, everything public was kept in a module-specific folder, while private stuff (private header, cpp file etc.) were kept in an _imp folder within this:
base\foo\foo.h
base\foo\_imp\foo_private.h
base\foo\_imp\foo.cpp
This way you could just grab around within your projects folder structure and get the header you want. You could grep for #include directives containing _imp and have a good look at them. You could also grab the whole folder, copy it somewhere, and delete all _imp sub folders, knowing you'd have everything ready to release an API.
Within projects headers where usually included as
#include "foo/foo.h"
However, if the project had to use some API, then API headers would be copied/installed by the API's build wherever they were supposed to go on that platform by the build system and then be installed as system headers:
#include <foo/foo.h>