I recently tried to install boost libraries in C++ 14, and I added it's include paths like:
Solution Explorer > Project Name > Property Pages > VC++ Directories > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\boost\boost"
I tried to compile after adding this:
#include <boost\variant.hpp>
In Error List window, I can see E1696 - cannot open source file "boost\variant.hpp" and I can't compile like before.
Then I tried with adding a backslash like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\boost\boost\", still didn't work.
I also read this post and explicitly specified it's directory, but even didn't work.
Again, I read this post and did exactly same what is in given answer (as I already built project several times) , but still no success.
However, if I include a library like:
#include "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\boost\boost\variant.hpp"
Now compiler recognizes it, but now I can see more than 100 errors in Error List window, those errors are pointed to header files of boost libraries, not in my project file which has variant.hpp included.
All those errors are E1696 - cannot open source file "boost\<libraryname.hpp>" or E1696 - cannot open source file "boost\<subdirs>\<some other files included in libraryname.hpp>"
So, if I remove the line #include "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\boost\boost\variant.hpp" from my project's header file, all errors disappear suddenly and project compiles fine! no any single error now!
I want boost to work anyway, so I can use it in projects, but I can't manually edit all those header files and change <boost\... to original locations.
Please help me to get rid of this issue.
make sure you download and install the correct boost version. Installing it in the visual studio directories is possible, but not advised. I suggest you use one of the packages from here. Assuming you use visual studio 2017 and you are developing for 64bit, this could perhaps be the correct package for you.
make sure you do both: adding the include search path and the library search path to your visual studio.
The include search path should point to the boost-installation root directory (the one that contains the Jamroot file and a boost subdirectory). The library search path should point to the correct library subfolder within the boost installation. This is one of the subfolders that start with lib64-msvc-**.* (or lib32-msvc-* if you're developing for 32bit).
The default install path of the binary boost package above will install it into C:\local\boost_<boost version>. Make sure you use the paths from this installation directory and follow the instructions here.
Example:
Include search path: C:\local\boost_1_64_0
Library search path: C:\local\boost_1_64_0\lib64-msvc-14.1
I've been trying to compile tulip using cmake to generate visual studio 2012 project files. It's giving me lots of trouble. I don't know how to get this to build. I've been trying to get visual studio to build this for 4 days now, and I'm extremely frustrated. Essentially, I follow the steps here, and then set the variables CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH AND CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH according to these instructions.
To get to where I'm at, all you have to do is download tulip, and:
Unzip it, create a separate build directory outside of this source directory
Open CMake-gui to the source and build directories
Hit configure. Check use qt5, tell it where qmake is (make sure it's qt5)
You need some dependencies as described in The Independent CMake tutorial. Grab all those dependencies
As you continue to hit configure, specify each of the directories that it asks for as it errors out. It should ask for freetype, glew, zlib and sphinx. It shouldn't ask for where libxml or libpng, or libjpeg are. I don't know why it doesn't ask for those.
Generate, and then browse to the ALL_BUILD that you've generated. Open it with visual studio
try to build it with visual studio.
In those instructions and in the process of getting CMake to generate the visual studio build files, it specifically asks for freetype's location. But in my build, it doesn't have a clue how to link the freetype library.
Here are the errors that I get
Here is my CMakeCached.txt
I know that many people aren't going to want to exactly try and go about replicating the build environment, so I've uploaded my build directory to dropbox. You can pull the entire thing down, and then open it in cmake gui and open the visual studio files in there too.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qsvukh9t5gb6bvt/tOfOBxWgd0
The linker errors you point to (mostly "unresolved external" errors) indicate that there are missing libraries on the link command line.
That is most likely happening because target_link_libraries calls in the tulip project are either being skipped or being called with library names that do not match the library names on disk.
Open up the solution in Visual Studio and right click the project and choose "Properties" -- look at the "Linker > Input" panel at the "Additional Dependencies" field. That should list all the libraries it wants to link to. Is there a freetype library listed there? Does that library exist in the referenced location on your disk?
There could be a mistake in the tulip project, or there could just be something wrong with your build/install of freetype...
UPDATE AFTER SOME CHAT:
Or it may be that you have some libraries built for x86 and some for x64... or maybe some for Debug and some for Release... or maybe even some with the MinGW compiler and some with the Visual Studio compiler. If that's the case, start over, from a clean slate, and build everything with a consistent compiler, configuration type and architecture. Then report back again with an update and see if the problems still remain.
I do with Dave,
You should try to fix your error 1 by 1.
The first error seems to be a link error:
Error 1 error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol gzread referenced in function "public: virtual int __cdecl gzstreambuf::underflow(void)" (?underflow#gzstreambuf##UEAAHXZ) C:\Users\kenne_000\tulip-build\tulip-build-debug\thirdparty\gzstream\gzstream.obj gzstream
gzstream is a third party lib included with tulip source in:
thirdparty\gzstream
from
thirdparty\gzstream\CMakeLists.txt
you can see that the missing symbols should be coming from ZLIB.
However your CMakeCache.txt indicate that
ZLIB_LIBRARY:FILEPATH=C:/Users/kenne_000/dependencies/zlib128-dll/lib/zdll.lib
is found.
So the question may be, was this dependency compiled with the same compiler?
Don't you have compiler-specific name mangling issue ?
Does anyone know how to use the command line compiler ('cl' and 'link') in Visual C++ to build a project? We are more used to 'make' and 'gcc' here, but were recently moved to Visual Studio. I suppose we could use nmake, but I'm hoping for some information regarding using 'cl' and 'link' (as in compiling without a .sln file).
something along the lines of
create object files
link object files to create executable
is what we want, but I just can't seem to make it work using the command line parameters. Help please?
As I tend to always say, anything Microsoft related can be found on MSDN and a quick trip to google.
cl.exe is documented here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235639%28v=vs.100%29.aspx
It's pretty simple just enter the directory of cl.exe and write in the cmd.
cl.exe /? and then it will list all the available flags.
You need to get 2 Files in you Path:
vcvarsall.bat
cl.exe
vcvarsall.bat is a shellscript which is responsible to determine on which architecture you're running on and includes several folders into your path which the cl compiler needs. on my pc this script resides under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC
cl.exe is the compiler itself and on my pc resides under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin
i simply declared a environment variable VC_HOME : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC and included in the Path %VC_HOME%;%VC_HOME%\bin;
now when you open the shell, at first run vcvarsall.bat and then you can say: cl MyProgramm.cpp
Edit: sorry, didn't notice the 'without .sln' part. Ignore this answer please. I'm leaving it in place for others that may actually need this but it's not an answer to the original question.
If you just want to build a solution/project file (that is, most of your build settings are already defined in your project file), you can use devenv.exe to build the solution/project for you - this is probably the simplest way of doing a build from the command line.
For example:
devenv.exe myapp.sln /Rebuild "Release|x64"
cleans & builds the myapp.sln solution in the Release|x64 configuration.
If you run
devenv.exe /?
command, it gives you all command-line options. You can use devenv to build only a specific project in the solution by using the `/project' switch.
If you need more flexibility (and you're willing to spend a lot of time writing the right script), you can use nmake to build from the command-line, but I don't know that well, so I can't give useful advice.
I've been encountering a strange bug in Visual Studio 2010 for some time now.
I have a solution consisting of a project which compiles to a static library, and another project which is really simple but depends on this library.
Sometimes, in the last days extremely frequent, after Rebuilding the Solution or just compiling it with 1-3 changed source files, I get the following error:
2>LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'thelibrary.lib'
========== Rebuild All: 1 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 skipped ==========
Where compiling thelibrary.lib was a success without any errors or warnings.
I have tried cleaning the solution, but that doesn't always work.
What is wrong here?
In Linker, general, additional library directories, add the directory to the .dll or .libs you have included in Linker, Input.
It does not work if you put this in VC++ Directories, Library Directories.
I can see only 1 things happening here:
You did't set properly dependences to thelibrary.lib in your project meaning that thelibrary.lib is built in the wrong order (Or in the same time if you have more then 1 CPU build configuration, which can also explain randomness of the error). ( You can change the project dependences in: Menu->Project->Project Dependencies )
Go to:
Project properties -> Linker -> General -> Link Library Dependencies set No.
I recently hit the same error. Some digging brought up this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815645
Basically, if you have spaces in the path of the .lib, that's bad. Don't know if that's what's happening for you, but seems reasonably possible.
The fix is either 1) put the lib reference in "quotes", or 2) add the lib's path to your Library Directories (Configuration Properties >> VC++ Directories).
I had the same issue in both VS 2010 and VS 2012.
On my system the first static lib was built and then got immediately deleted when the main project started building.
The problem is the common intermediate folder for several projects. Just assign separate intermediate folder for each project.
Read more on this here
I solved it with the following:
Go to View-> Property Pages -> Configuration Properties -> Linker -> Input
Under additional dependencies add the thelibrary.lib. Don't use any quotations.
I had a similar problem in that I was getting LINK1181 errors on the .OBJ file that was part of the project itself (and there were only 2 .cxx files in the entire project).
Initially I had setup the project to generate an .EXE in Visual Studio, and then in the
Property Pages -> Configuration Properties -> General -> Project Defaults -> Configuration Type, I changed the .EXE to .DLL. Suspecting that somehow Visual Studio 2008 was getting confused, I recreated the entire solution from scratch using .DLL mode right from the start. Problem went away after that. I imagine if you manually picked your way through the .vcproj and other related files you could figure out how to fix things without starting from scratch (but my program consisted of two .cpp files so it was easier to start over).
I'm stumbling into the same issue. For me it seems to be caused by having 2 projects with the same name, one depending on the other.
For example, I have one project named Foo which produces Foo.lib. I then have another project that's also named Foo which produces Foo.exe and links in Foo.lib.
I watched the file activity w/ Process Monitor. What seems to be happening is Foo(lib) is built first--which is proper because Foo(exe) is marked as depending on Foo(lib). This is all fine and builds successfully, and is placed in the output directory--$(OutDir)$(TargetName)$(TargetExt). Then Foo(exe) is triggered to rebuild. Well, a rebuild is a clean followed by a build. It seems like the 'clean' stage of Foo.exe is deleting Foo.lib from the output directory. This also explains why a subsequent 'build' works--that doesn't delete output files.
A bug in VS I guess.
Unfortunately I don't have a solution to the problem as it involves Rebuild. A workaround is to manually issue Clean, and then Build.
I don't know why, but changing the Linker->Input->Additional Dependencies reference from "dxguid.lib" to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010)\Lib\x86\dxguid.lib" (in my case) was the only thing that worked.
Maybe you have a hardware problem.
I had the same problem on my old system (AMD 1800 MHz CPU ,1GB RAM ,Windows 7 Ultimate) ,until I changed the 2x 512 MB RAM to 2x 1GB RAM. Haven't had any problems since. Also other (minor) problems disappeared. Guess those two 512 MB modules didn't like each other that much ,because 2x 512 MB + 1GB or 1x 512 MB + 2x 1GB didn't work properly either.
For me the problem was a wrong include directory. I have no idea why this caused the error with the seemingly missing lib as the include directory only contains the header files. And the library directory had the correct path set.
You can also fix the spaces-in-path problem by specifying the library path in DOS "8.3" format.
To get the 8.3 form, do (at the command line):
DIR /AD /X
recursively through every level of the directories.
I had the same problem. Solved it by defining a macro OBJECTS that contains all the linker objects e.g.:
OBJECTS = target.exe kernel32.lib mylib.lib (etc)
And then specifying $(OBJECTS) on the linker's command line.
I don't use Visual Studio though, just nmake and a .MAK file
I had the same error when running lib.exe from cmd on Windows with a long argument list. apparently cmd.exe has max line length of about 8K characters, which resulted that the filenames at the end of this threshold got changed, thus resulting in bad filename error.
my solution was to trim the line. I removed all paths from filenames and added single path using /LIBPATH option. for example:
/LIBPATH:absolute_path /OUT:outfilename filename1.obj filename2.obj ... filenameN.obj
I found a different solution for this...
Actually, I missed comma separator between two library paths. After adding common it worked for me.
Go to: Project properties -> Linker -> General -> Link Library Dependencies
At this path make sure the path of the library is correct.
Previous Code (With Bug - because I forgot to separate two lib paths with comma):
<Link><AdditionalLibraryDirectories>..\..\Build\lib\$(Configuration)**..\..\Build\Release;**%(AdditionalLibraryDirectories)</AdditionalLibraryDirectories>
Code after fix (Just separate libraries with comma):
<Link><AdditionalLibraryDirectories>..\..\Build\lib\$(Configuration)**;..\..\Build\Release;**%(AdditionalLibraryDirectories)</AdditionalLibraryDirectories>
Hope this will help you.
In my case I had the library installed using NuGet package (cpprestsdk) AND I falsely added the lib to the Additional Dependancies in the Linker settings. It turns out, the package does it all for you.
The linker then tried to find the library in the library path and of course could not find it.
After removing the library from the Additional Dependencies everything compiled and linked fine.
Not quite the answer to OP's question as I am using CMake with Visual Studio as a generator but I personally also just encountered the same issue (I am using Visual Studio toolchain, but not the IDE to build stuff).
My fix was target linking the directory of the directory of the libraries (I had a few) before target linking the library.
//Works
target_link_directories(MyExe PRIVATE /out/of/scope/path/to/lib)
foreach(X IN LISTS LIBSLISTNAMES)
target_link_libraries(MyExe ${X})
endforeach()
//Throws cannot open cannot open input file error
foreach(X IN LISTS LIBSLISTNAMES)
target_link_libraries(MyExe /out/of/scope/path/to/lib/${X})
endforeach()
Not sure what is happening under the hood, but maybe VS IDE has equivalent setting somewhere?
I've also experienced this problem. For me the dependencies were properly set, but one of the projects in my solution wasn't selected for building in the configuration (VS 2022 pro).
I eventually figured out thanks to output in Build -> Clean Solution that mentioned one of the project in dependency chain being disabled. Interesingly enough, when trying to build the disabled project it wouldd not properly build its dependencies.
In the solution were two projects A and B. Building B requires A.lib, and somewhere along the line, the solution was cleaned.
Later, for testing purposes it was desired to build B alone, and the error was mistakenly taken as
cannot open input file 'B.lib'
instead of what it actually was
cannot open input file 'A.lib'
So burning the candles at both ends in order to comprehend why the project B build process would delete its own library!
I created a bin directory at the project_dir level, then created a release/debug directory inside the bin folder, which solved the problem for me.
I'm currently working on a console application that will pass a vcxproj file and compile it using GCC. Unfortunately, I've come up against a whole load of problems pretty much instantly.
I notice a bunch of directory shortcuts such as:
VCTargetsPath
VCInstallDir
SolutionDir
ProjectDir
UserRootDir
and so on.
Where does MSBuild get these values from? I assumed they were environment variables set up for the MSBuild process (afterall known environment variables are addressed the same way, ie "$(...)"). This was a bad assumption so I'm left wondering exactly how I get at these. Has anyone any idea on this?
Any info would be much appreciated :)
The MSBuild executable (and dependent DLLs) processes those properties the same way it processes any other property in the build file. In this case, they're simply predefined properties that it looks for explicitly.
If you really want to dig into it, open up the Microsoft.Build.dll in Reflector and look for the Microsoft.Build.Construction.SolutionProjectGenerator.AddGlobalProperties(...) method to get an idea of how it's handling some of the well known properties.
As an additional note, make sure you fully navigate down Import directives and handle overwriting of property and item values with each Import. There's a number of properties and items that are part of a Visual Studio build that are not always necessary for your code to compile correctly.
I believe that these are tied to Visual Studio macros: MSDN
Some of them are defined by the location of your files
SolutionDir - the directory containing the solution (.sln) file including this project
ProjectDir - the directory containing the project file (.vcproj, .vcxproj)
Others are defined by the location of the MSVC install
VCInstallDir - where the Visual C portion of Visual Studio is installed. ie. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC
and so on, and would be internal to msbuild based on what you loaded.