We recently converted a C++ project from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio 8. Everything went well until we reached the compilation of a project who put all the static libraries inside one big static library. By default after the conversion between the two version of projects the project didn't do anything (no big static library was created, it only said that the project was up-to-date).
We found a working solution by adding a dummy (empty) file to the project (it had no other files before, in the Visual Studio 6 solution). Everything went well and we managed to compile the project with the new development environment (Visual Studio 8).
My question is: Is there any other way to do this, without dummy files added to the project?
Thanks in advance for your responses
You can use the method described in the answer by nobugz also with multiple configurations and different directories for debug and release input libs. Just add all input libs, debug and release, and use "exclude from build". In the debug configuration exclude all release input libs from the build, in the release configuration exclude all debug input libs.
Related
I've recently decided to try out PostgreSQL as the database platform for some C++ development I'm working on. I decided to use libpqxx as the connection library for my project, and quickly found out this would be an uphill battle to do from VS 2015 on a Windows 10 machine.
After much teeth-gnashing and nail-biting, I have gotten libpqxx to compile on Windows 10.
This leaves me with the following directory structure
Per libpqxx's documentation, I also placed a copy of libpq.dll in my project's executable directory. Please note: I have done this for both debug and release builds, tried to build both, and ended up with the same result.
All the tutorials I've seen seem to indicate that the library can be used after linking it and simply #including pqxx/pqxx, so I set up a small project to do just that. I receive the error:
fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'pqxx/pqxx': No such file or directory
When attempting to build the project. I have also tried this will both debug and release builds, to no avail.
Here is a screenshot of my linker settings.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might be able to link and use this library from Visual Studio 2015?
As Sami Kuhmonen pointed out, this was not actually a linker error, but a compiler error. I needed to include an actual header, which Visual Studio needed to be able to find. After adding the correct folder (C:\libpqxx\include in my case) to Visual Studio's "additional include directories" setting under C\C++ -> General per drescherjm's suggestion, the program compiles just fine.
For future reference:
I did also run into unresolved external linker errors after solving the initial issue. This is because you need to make sure to also link to ws2_32.lib and libpq.lib. You also need to copy some other DLL files that libpq also relies on into your libpqxx lib folder. On my system, I believe these were ssleay32.dll, libeay32.dll, and libintl-8.dll. These files reside under the root of the PostgreSQL install. The DLL step is mentioned under libpqxx's INSTALL.txt file, however I believe it stated that the DLLs resided one folder under where I actually found them.
I have also faced same issue. Then I realized that I was building ,my application as a 32bit. I changed the target to x64 and it compiled successfully
I had a C/C++ Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition project that was defined to generate a DLL, and I'm having a lot of misery with "undefined symbols" which I wanted to use in another project, so I decided to see what it would give if I changed the project settings so that it would generate a static library instead.
So in the Properties window of the project I went to
Configuration Properties > General > Project Defaults > Configuration Type
and set the Configuration Type to Static Library
The target extension is .lib.
When I do a rebuild I still get a fresh dll file in my Release folder, as well as a lib, and the DLL file is much bigger than the lib file. This makes the lib file look like an "export lib" file and it looks like nothing has changed.
This still happens if I stop and restart Visual Studio.
Am I missing something or does this look like a bug to you?
In Configuration Properties - C/C++ - Runtime Library change setting to Multi-threaded (/MT) for Release configuration and to Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd) for Debug configuration.
Also, check Configuration Properties - General - General - Target extension is set to .lib.
Check settings for all configurations (Release and Debug if you use them).
Why have you changed your project type? If you need DLL, build DLL. Post exact errors received during DLL compilation. Perhaps you missed some dllexport/dllimport declspecs.
Regarding .lib: are you sure, that DLL is generated during build? Perhaps it is the output from previous (DLL) configuration? Have you tried to compile test app using this .lib? Perhaps it is valid and compiled properly?
Another matter: have you removed all dclspecs from function signatures after project type change? When building static library, none of them are applicable.
Has anyone done this before ? I am not able to get it to work.
Following are my steps:
Download the windows package from link
I can run qfuzzylite (gui-tool) without any problem. Now I want to use the fuzzylite lib in my Visual Studio + Qt Integration Project.
In the CMake GUI I give fuzzylite source folder as the input folder and select Visual Studio 2010 as the compiler.
I am able to generate the Visual Studio fuzzylite solution in CMake without any errors.
Then, I tried to build the Visual Studio solution, but it fails with some weird errors. However, it does generate the fuzzylite-dbg.lib file (which I need).
Then I use this lib file and the fuzzylite.dll and include the path to the Headers in the VS Project. The project builds without any errors.
Now in the code I am doing
fl::Engine* engine = new fl::Engine("simple-dimmer");
This fails with the following exception:
exception text: bad allocation
exception type: class std::bad_alloc
Thank you for your detailed steps, but the solution seems to be a bit random (or weird as you put it). Unless more information is provided about the error, I strongly discourage the use of such a solution to attempt any fix to fuzzylite.
If you are running into problems, I strongly encourage you to report the problem in the forums at http://www.fuzzylite.com, where I and others will be very happy to help you.
As for the compiling errors, fuzzylite treats warnings as errors. A warning that is being raised in fuzzylite 4.0 when compiled using Visual Studio (not from console via nmake), and potentially in previous versions, is warning C4702, which refers to unreachable code. You can fix this by adding in file fl/fuzzylite.h the following line within the #ifdef FL_WINDOWS (together other #pragmas):
#pragma warning(disable:4702) //Ignore unreachable code
If the library was not built correctly, errors are bound to happen during runtime.
Ok, got it :)
Here are the steps for future reference:
Download the windows package from link
In the CMake GUI I give fuzzylite source folder as the input folder and select Visual Studio 2010 as the compiler. Now, if you want to use the lib in Debug mode tick the FL_DEBUG box (this is where I went wrong)
Now on clicking "generate", it will generate 5 projects:
ALL_BUILD
fl-bin
fl-shared
fl-static
INSTALL
ZERO_CHECK
Now in the Project properties in fl-bin, shared and static go to the Project Properties. In C/C++ go to Preprocessor get rid of the space in FL_DATA="mm.dd.yyyy " to "mm.dd.yyyy" (weird).
The solution should build fine and will generate fuzzylite-dbg.dll and fuzzylite-dbg.lib in the lib folder.
Use these files in your VC Project by adding the fuzzy-dbg.lib as the linker input and place the dll in the solution folder. Give the path "path\to\fuzzylite\fuzzylite." to the Include Directories.
Do the same process for Release mode (don't tick the FL_DEBUG flag)
I'm fairly new to C++ and an trying to figure out to use the TagLib library for a project I am working on. I'm working with unmanaged C++ in Visual Studio 2010 on Windows 7 64bit. I've never used an external library before so I'm very confused on how to go about this.
From this blog entry I got the libtaglib.a and taglib.dll files. I ran across this SO question on how to use TagLib, but it deals with QT Creator, not Visual Studio and I'm not knowledgeable enough about the subject to understand what is being said to translate it into what needs done for Visual Studio.
So, some questions:
Is it even possible to do this with unmanaged code?
What exactly is the function of a .a file?
Most importantly, how do I go about using the taglib.dll in my program??
I've been all over Google looking for a way to do this, but my major problem is that everything I run across is over my head. Please let me know if more info is required. Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!
I seem to have gotten it working successfully. Here's a rough outline of what I did:
1.) I used CMake to generate the Visual Studio solution.
2.) I attempted to build the tag project in the VS solution, but it failed.
3.) I made the corrections to a few source files as outlined here: http://old.nabble.com/taglib-fails-to-compile-with-MS-VC%2B%2B-2010-td29185593.html
4.) I built the tag project again in release mode. This time it was successful.
5.) I copied the resulting dll, def, and lib files to the same directory as the source files for my project.
6.) I copied the header files from the taglib source to a subdirectory in my project (not sure if this entirely good practice)
7.) In my project settings, I set the subdirectory with the header files as an additional include directory.
8.) I added the dll, exp, and lib files to my project by just going to Add>Existing Item.
9.) I added some code from the taglib examples and built it. Everything worked so I think I got it.
One caveat I ran into, since the DLL was built in release mode, my project had to be run in release mode or it would crash. I'm guessing that if I replaced the DLL with one built in debug mode I could run my program in debug mode, but I have not tried this.
You cannot use libraries specific to GCC (you can tell because they have .a extensions) with Visual Studio. You will have to build the library from source in order to use it with MSVC. Once you have done that it's a simple matter of adding the .lib generated from the build process to your project and things should work out of the box. (Note that it's a .lib you need whether you're compiling for dynamic linking or not -- doesn't matter in msvc land)
EDIT -- after looking at TagLib itself --
In order to compile TagLib you'll need to get the CMake build system, and TagLib itself, and have CMake build you a visual studio solution. Using that solution you'll be able to build the .libs and .dlls you need. Note that because TagLib is a KDE library, you'll probably need to also build some QT bits in order for everything work work successfully. However, I don't have specific experience with the library so I'm not going to be all that helpful here.
Yo do not have to recompile the source (to create the .lib file) if you have the .dll file. With dumpbin /exports and lib (both came with Visual Studio) yo can create a lib that you can link with your application. In this link you can see a nice explanation: http://www.coderetard.com/2009/01/21/generate-a-lib-from-a-dll-with-visual-studio/
But as Billy Said, probably you would need other parts of QT to use this library.
I have created a wn32 project with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual C++ language, it uses the ws2_32.lib library and then I compiled in Release mode.
It runs very good in the same computer, but when I copy the exe file to other computer (that doesn't have installed Visual Studio), it doesn't run.
The message I see is:
This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
But, if I compile my application using DEV C++, it generates a bigger executable (738KB) compared with the Visual Studio 2008 executable (9.5 KB). However, the DEV C++ executable runs in the other computer.
I have add the library ws2_32.lib to the linker properties of my project, in the Additional Dependencies field.
How can I fix it to work with Visual Studio 2008?
My code is the following: http://www.stan.com.mx/yupi/udpserver.cpp
The problem is almost certainly that the other computer does not have version 9 of the C++ CRT installed.
The default setting for compiling against the CRT in VS2008 is to dynamically link vs. statically linking. If you want to deploy your program with a real setup project you'll need to include the CRT redistributable.
However if you want to do an XCOPY deployment follow the steps on the following page.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235291.aspx
Try installing the Visual C++ redistributables. If that doesn't work, use DependencyWalker to find out what DLLs are missing.
I agree with JaredPar. The application you build with VS2008 is using dynamic linking, whereas the DEV C++ is linking statically, hence the larger size and why one works and not the other.
However, if its a plain win32 application project you've got (and you don't want/need to distribute it with a setup), you may be able to get it to run on another machine without redistributing the CRT by getting VS2008 to link statically for you (if its just the standard lib you're missing). I don't have a copy of VS2008 to hand, so I'll describe how to do it in VS2005 and hopefully it'll translate across.
Bring up configuration properties for the project (right click the project name, then select "properties" from the menu)
Expand "Configuration Properties", then "C/C++", then click "Code Generation"
Under the "Runtime Library" item, for your particular configuration select the non-DLL version of the library i.e. for debug builds you want "Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd) and for release builds you want "Multi-threaded (/MT)"
Try and see if that works. You'll obviously get a much bigger final binary now the library is statically linked.
You may be missing an external dependency required by your program. Check the project settings to see if you are linking against MFC dynamically for example. You can also run Depends utility to check for missing dependencies.