I have introduced boost to our code base, on my machine I created a boost directory called Thirdparty.Boost and added that as an additional include directory in my Visual Studio setting, all is fine.
However I now want to check in my changes, so the rest of the team can get them. Inorder to build the code they would need to setup boost as I have (problem number 1). In addition we have a build server, which will need changing (problem 2). I have a way of distributing boost to everyone including the build server, so that's not a problem
I need a way of referring to the boost directory without changing the default settings in Visual Studio. Why don't you change it on a project level I hear you cry? The solution has over 200 projects, which would require a lot of changes.
I just wondered if there was another way?
Cheers
Rich
What about adding an environment variable on each of your developer's machines:
CL=-I<...the_boost_directory...>
i.e. on your machine:
CL=-IThirdparty.Boost
The MS compiler adds the value of the environment variable CL to its command line, so this should do the trick for you.
Related
I am currently using Visual Studio 2013 (Update 4) for building Qt5.4.0 projects. I use the express version so I don't use the VS plugin. My .vcxproj files a generated from .pro files using build scripts and qmake.
When debugging my projects I sometimes try to step into Qt library code. To do this I added the path to the Qt source codes to the solution properties->Debug Source Files setting like described in a former post (VS2013 debugger can not find Qt sources).
Because I have many different projects and it would be a pain to update all of them in case of a Qt update I used a system environment variable "QTSRC" pointing to that path and added the following line to the solution:
$(QTSRC)
This worked like charm some time ago (with an older update of VS and a former Qt version 5.x).
But unfortunately it does not work anymore. It seems that VS now totally ignores the system environment variable (it also does not show any errors when I check the "check entries" button in the dialog).
Does anybody know what changed here lately and what must be done to fix this? It would be very annoying to add the path hardcoded to every project (which still works) and have to do this over and over again after Qt updates.
I'd look at the Property Pages which will allow you to set user defined values that you can share across different projects:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/675f1588.aspx
I use them to set global include paths, but it looks like you can set almost anything there. Set things in the .User pages if you want them used for all your projects but not included in the solution or project file itself.
A good, short, guide is here:
http://www.curlybrace.com/words/2012/12/17/setting-global-c-include-paths-in-visual-studio-2012-and-2011-and-2010/
I am new to Visual Stuido and I want to know how to organize the dependencies of a project in Visual Studio 2010 C++ (Express Edition) best.
The main problem is the following:
A project P requires lib L, so I add dependecy L to P. L is somewhere located at my system. I submit P to our version control. My colleague checks P out, but the configuration of P does not fit to his system (L is located somewhere else at his system). So he adjusts the configuration and submits the changes to P. I check P out and now it does not fit to my system.
I come from Java and Eclipse. In Eclipse you can set a variable globally for the whole IDE f.e. PATH_TO_L. In the project configuration the dependency is now variable PATH_TO_L and not anymore a path. So my colleague and I can use the exact same sources including the project configuration. All we have to do is to set both the variable PATH_TO_L. Nice.
Even nicer is Maven. So you do not have to care about copying the right dependencies to the right locations, because Maven does all the work for you.
I searched a little bit for a solution. One possible solution would be to use Property Sheets and to add a template Property Sheet to our version control. But templates in version control are not comfortable to use and I would have to adjust the settings for every project. Not a global setting.
I tried to use system environment variables, but I think Visual Studio 2010 does not use them.
So here is the question. How do you organize your projects in Visual Studio 2010? Is there an ideal way? Is there something like Maven, or is there a possibilty to use an repository manager like nexus in Visual Studio?
You are on the right track, with the property sheets.
You could use a property sheet to reference a environment variable. An example is here.
I would add the Path of library to the user specific property file named Microsoft.Cpp.<platform>.user. As this is included by default. More information is here.
As soon as you get familiar with the property sheets it not as bad as it seems. I actually start to like the msbuild system. But I am not aware of anything like maven for msbuild.
Quite a lot of people are using meta-build systems, these days, such as CMake, SCons...
Amongst other useful features, you can set up some variables that you can later reuse, for example for paths. This way, your colleague and yourself will have the same CMake configuration, but with individualised paths.
And, as these scripts are simple text files, they play nicely with version control (much better than MSVC xml configuration)
Is it possible to combine the following properties, and if so, how?
Store in our version control system some Visual Studio 2008 native C++ (VCPROJ) project files for the developers in our team that use this IDE.
Allow some of those developers to tweak their projects (e.g. using debug version of third-party libraries instead of the usual ones).
Make sure these modifications are done in files that are not versioned.
In other words, I would like to allow developers to tweak some settings in their projects without risking that these changes are committed.
An 'optional VSPROP' file approach seems doomed to fail, as VS2008 refuses to load projects that refer to non-existent VSPROP files...
Any other suggestion? Is this possible with VS2010?
You may not be able to do this but using a solution that generates the vcproj like CMake for example would let you do this. Scripts all your project with CMake and literally conditionally include a config file(if present for example) that developers can change on their setup.
Branches could solve this problem: you create a branch, play with different versions of third-party, merge changes to trunk if results are good.
Well, as a preliminary solution you could put the project file into something like .hgignore or .gitignore after its initial commit.
This way changes to it can't be done accidentally.
At least that's how I handle .hgignore itself.
We use a versionned "common_configuration" folder, and a script which copies project files from this "common_configuration" folder towards the "project" folder.
We have another script to copy the configuration backwards, so the developpers need to make a conscious action to commit their local changes to the global version control system.
It answers partly your needs :
The upside : we have a way to keep a common configuration for everyone, and no accidental committing of local configuration
The downside : blindly copying the files actually crushes local changes. We live with it. We could write some more clever merger tool (using diff, or xml specific manipulations), but don't want to spend to much time on supporting the deployment tools.
I have a number of native C++ libraries (Win32, without MFC) compiling under Visual Studio 2005, and used in a number of solutions.
I'd like to be able to choose to compile and link them as either static libraries or DLLs, depending on the needs of the particular solution in which I'm using them.
What's the best way to do this? I've considered these approaches:
1. Multiple project files
Example: "foo_static.vcproj" vs "foo_dll.vcproj"
Pro: easy to generate for new libraries, not too much manual vcproj munging.
Con: settings, file lists, etc. in two places get out of sync too easily.
2. Single project file, multiple configurations
Example: "Debug | Win32" vs "Debug DLL | Win32", etc.
Pro: file lists are easier to keep in sync; compilation options are somewhat easier to keep in sync
Con: I build for both Win32 and Smart Device targets, so I already have multiple configurations; I don't want to make my combinatorial explosion worse ("Static library for FooPhone | WinMobile 6", "Dynamic library for FooPhone | WinMobile 6", "Static library for BarPda | WinMobile 6", etc.
Worse Con: VS 2005 has a bad habit of assuming that if you have a configuration defined for platform "Foo", then you really need it for all other platforms in your solution, and haphazardly inserts all permutations of configuration/platform configurations all over the affected vcproj files, whether valid or not. (Bug filed with MS; closed as WONTFIX.)
3. Single project file, selecting static or dynamic via vsprops files
Example: store the appropriate vcproj fragments in property sheet files, then apply the "FooApp Static Library" property sheet to config/platform combinations when you want static libs, and apply the "FooApp DLL" property sheet when you want DLLs.
Pros: This is what I really want to do!
Cons: It doesn't seem possible. It seems that the .vcproj attribute that switches between static and dynamic libraries (the ConfigurationType attribute of the Configuration element) isn't overrideable by the .vsprops file. Microsoft's published schema for these files lists only <Tool> and <UserMacro> elements.
EDIT: In case someone suggests it, I've also tried a more "clever" version of #3, in which I define a .vsprops containing a UserMacro called "ModuleConfigurationType" with a value of either "2" (DLL) or "4" (static library), and changed the configuration in the .vcproj to have ConfigurationType="$(ModuleConfigurationType)". Visual Studio silently and without warning removes the attribute and replaces it with ConfigurationType="1". So helpful!
Am I missing a better solution?
I may have missed something, but why can't you define the DLL project with no files, and just have it link the lib created by the other project?
And, with respect to settings, you can factor them out in vsprop files...
There is an easy way to create both static and dll lib versions in one project.
Create your dll project. Then do the following to it:
Simply create an nmake makefile or .bat file that runs the lib tool.
Basically, this is just this:
lib /NOLOGO /OUT:<your_lib_pathname> #<<
<list_all_of_your_obj_paths_here>
<<
Then, in your project, add a Post Build Event where the command just runs the .bat file (or nmake or perl). Then, you will always get both a dll and a static lib.
I'll refrain from denigrating visual studio for not allowing the tool for this to exist in a project just before Linker (in the tool flow).
I think the typical way this is done is choice 2 above. It is what I use and what I have seen done by a number of libraries and companies.
If you find it does not work for you then by all means use something else.
Good luck.
I prefer 2 configurations way.
Setup all common settings via 'All configurations' item in a project properties windows. After it separated settings. And it's done. Let's go coding.
Also there is very good feature named 'Batch build', which builds specified configurations by turn.
Multiple projects are the best way to go - this is the configuration i have most widely seen in umpteen no of projects that i have come across.
That said, it might be also possible to implement the third option by modifying your vcproj files on the fly from external tools(like a custom vbscript), that you could invoke from a make file. You can use shell variables to control the behavior of the tool.
Note that you should still use use visual studio to make the build, the makefile should only launch your external tool if required to make the mods and then follow that by the actual build command
I use Visual Studio 6.0 (Still) due to issues that are preventing us from Migrating to VS2005 or newer. Rebuilding causes severe issues (everything breaks)... so many of us are considering lobbying a migration to GnuC++ moving forward in a structured way to eventually get us off of licensed Visual Studio products and onto Eclipse and Linux.
In Unix/Linux it is easy to build for all configurations.. so I can't believe what a time and productivity sink it is to try and accomplish the same task in Visual Studio. For VS6.0 I have so far found that only having two separate projects seems to be workable. I haven't yet tried the multiple configuration technique, but will see if it works in the older VS6.0.
Why not go for version 1 and generate the second set of project files from the first using a script or something. That way you know that the differences are JUST the pieces required to build a dll or static lib.
I have a few things that I cannot find a good way to perform in Visual Studio:
Pre-build step invokes a code generator that generates some source files which are later compiled. This can be solved to a limited extent by adding blank files to the project (which are later replaced with real generated files), but it does not work if I don't know names and/or the number of auto-generated source files. I can easily solve it in GNU make using $(wildcard generated/*.c). How can I do something similar with Visual Studio?
Can I prevent pre-build/post-build event running if the files do not need to be modified ("make" behaviour)? The current workaround is to write a wrapper script that will check timestamps for me, which works, but is a bit clunky.
What is a good way to locate external libraries and headers installed outside of VS? In *nix case, they would normally be installed in the system paths, or located with autoconf. I suppose I can specify paths with user-defined macros in project settings, but where is a good place to put these macros so they can be easily found and adjusted?
Just to be clear, I am aware that better Windows build systems exist (CMake, SCons), but they usually generate VS project files themselves, and I need to integrate this project into existing VS build system, so it is desirable that I have just plain VS project files, not generated ones.
If you need make behavior and are used to it, you can create visual studio makefile projects and include them in your project.
If you want less clunky, you can write visual studio macros and custom build events and tie them to specific build callbacks / hooks.
You can try something like workspacewhiz which will let you setup environment variables for your project, in a file format that can be checked in. Then users can alter them locally.
I've gone through this exact problem and I did get it working using Custom Build Rules.
But it was always a pain and worked poorly. I abandoned visual studio and went with a Makefile system using cygwin. Much better now.
cl.exe is the name of the VS compiler.
Update: I recently switched to using cmake, which comes with its own problems, and cmake can generate a visual studio solution. This seems to work well.
Specifically for #3, I use property pages to designate 3rd party library location settings (include paths, link paths, etc.). You can use User Macros from a parent or higher level property sheet to designate the starting point for the libraries themselves (if they are in a common root location), and then define individual sheets for each library using the base path macro. It's not automatic, but it is easy to maintain, and every developer can have a different root directory if necessary (it is in our environment).
One downside of this approach is that the include paths constructed this way are not included in the search paths for Visual Studio (unless you duplicate the definitions in the Projects and Directories settings for VS). I spoke to some MS people at PDC08 about getting this fixed for VS2010, and improving the interface in general, but no solid promises from them.
(1). I don't know a simple answer to this, but there are workarounds:
1a. If content of generated files does not clash (i.e. there is no common static identifiers etc.), you can add to the project a single file, such as AllGeneratedFiles.c, and modify your generator to append a #include "generated/file.c" to this file when it produces generated/file.c.
1b. Or you can create a separate makefile-based project for generated files and build them using nmake.
(2). Use a custom build rule instead of post-build event. You can add a custom build rule by right-clicking on the project name in the Solution Explorer and selecting Custom Build Rules.
(3). There is no standard way of doing this; it has to be defined on a per-project basis. One approach is to use environment variables to locate external dependencies. You can then use those environment variables in project properties. Add a readme.txt describing required tools and libraries and corresponding environment variables which the user has to set, and it should be easy enough for anyone to set up.
Depending on exactly what you are trying to do, you can sometimes have some luck with using a custom build step and setting your dependencies properly. It may be helpful to put all the generated code into its own project and then have your main project depend on it.