Conditionally add content file to visual studio C++ project - visual-studio-2010

I have a visual C++ project for a DLL and a setup project for it. In the installer i've added the content files of my project.
Is there a way to add a file as a content file depending on if you are compiling debug or release? I want to include boost_date_time-vc100-mt-gd-1_51.dll if I compile under debug and boost_date_time-vc100-mt-1_51.dll if I compile under release.
My additional deps looks like this
Shell32.lib;libzmq.lib;log4cxx.lib;boost_date_time-vc100-mt-gd-1_51.lib;...
Under additional library directories i've added the path to all these .lib files which also contains their respective .dll files
I've tried the following with no success...
Added a Custom build step to run before build that copies the correct dll files to the OutDir and set the Output of this custom build step to be the dll files.
Conditionally include a content file by manually editing the vcxproj file. If configuration was release mode I would set the non-debug version as deployment content and the debug version to false and vice versa for Debug mode. This looked something like this,
<ItemGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release'">
<None Include="boost_date_time-vc100-mt-1_51.dll ">
<DeploymentContent>true</DeploymentContent>....
</None></ItemGroup
Neither of these worked however. The second option seemed to always default to debug mode no matter how I built my project.

When you add a dependency, you can add it to one configuration or all configurations:
[This picture is of VS 2012, but 2010 and 2008 look pretty much the same.]
So, you pick the configuration you want to modify at the top-left, then add the library to the additional dependencies. Note that what you add here will be the .lib file associated with a DLL, not the dll itself (the compiler will make the executable depend on the DLL because you link with its .lib file).

Related

Have Intermediate CMake Files Appear in the IDE

I am developing a system of build scripts for CMake and have an issue with wanting to have intermediate CMakeLists.txt files appear in the IDE for easier search and edit.
I have a main CMake file that includes a directory that includes several subdirectories for libraries.
CMakeLists.txt
--- SubProjects:
-------CMakeLists.txt
-------ProjectAFolder:
----------CMakeLists.txt
-------ProjectBFolder:
----------CMakeLists.txt
-------ProjectCFolder:
----------CMakeLists.txt
In the SubProjects folder, the CMakeLists.txt is very simple and just includes the subproject folders one after the other:
SET(SUBDIRECTORIES ProjectAFolder
ProjectBFolder
ProjectCFolder )
foreach (subdirectory ${SUBDIRECTORIES})
add_subdirectory(${subdirectory})
endforeach ()
However, when I generate this in XCode or Visual Studio, the IDE does not include the intermediate CMakeLists.txt file anywhere because it does not belong to any individual library or executable target. What is the best way to include this somewhere so it appears in an IDE?
Depends on where you want the file to show up, since it doesn't belong to any target. You can simply add it to any existing target (just as you do with source files) or you can create a new custom target.
add_library(AnyExistingTarget <other source files> SubProjects/CMakeLists.txt)
Or create a custom target:
add_custom_target(MyIntermediateCMakeFiles SubProjects/CMakeLists.txt)
For Visual Studio, you could also use the built-in support for cmake. It will display the source tree in the IDE without any extra work.

Disable append Configuration Name to Output Folder in vcproj

In a C# csproj project, AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath and AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath prevent msbuild from creating subfolders for target framework and runtime in the build output directory. However, the configuration name is still appended.
Is there a configuration option to prevent a separate subfolder for each configuration?
So I figured out a solution to this. When editing the project settings in Visual Studio, it modifies the <BaseOutputPath> element in the XML project file. Simply change the element name to <OutputPath> instead, and it won't append the configuration name (and as you said, add <AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>false</AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath> and <AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>false</AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath> to disable appending target framework and runtime identifier).
As an example, I have the following in a <PropertyGroup> in a C# project:
<OutputPath>$(SolutionDir)Build\$(Configuration)\Plugins</OutputPath>
<AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>false</AppendTargetFrameworkToOutputPath>
<AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>false</AppendRuntimeIdentifierToOutputPath>
For a debug build, this will output the build files to <SolutionDir>\Build\Debug\Plugins.

Setup project: Using dynamic path for adding a file

Summary
Does SourcePath property of a file that is added to a setup project support variables? If yes, How can I ask it to pick the file from the folder corresponding to the current build configuration?
Detail
I'm deploying my VSTO add-in using MSI installer, which requires me to include MyAddin.vsto and MyAddin.dll.manifest files to the application folder. I include them manually using Add File command. The problem however is that if I change build configuration from Debug to Release and build my installer, it will still pick those two files from the Debug folder (becuz their paths are hard-coded in the setup project), potentially bundling an old version of the files in the installer. Therefore I want to use some macro/variable that would evaluate to the current build configuration.
The setup project file (.vdproj) adds files like this:
"SourcePath" = "8:..\\MyAddin\\obj\\Release\\MyAddin.vsto"
The path is relative, but the build configuration is hard-coded. I'm looking forward to something like:
"SourcePath" = "8:..\\MyAddin\\obj\\[$BUILD_CONFIG]\\MyAddin.vsto"
I'm using VS2015 community and .NET Framework 4.5.

Customize building VC++ in VS2010

I have a big C++ project and I need to do many steps in the building phase because I am building an application that is compatible with both 64 and 32, I have three projects:
proj1,Porj2,Proj3
and I need to do the following:
Exclude a cpp File from proj1 (32bit version)
Include a cpp file to proj1 (64bit version)
build proj1
build proj2
Execute output of proj2
Exclude a cpp File from proj3 (32bit version)
Include a cpp file to proj3 (64bit version)
Build proj3
Rename the exe that was built from proj3
Exclude a cpp File from proj1 (64bit version)
Include a cpp file to proj1 (32bit version)
still there are some other steps ... I was doing that manually and its frustrating, I found the I need to use MSBUILD but is it used for building native code ? and how can I perfrom these tasks ?
-Excluding and Including cpp files into projects
-Building proj
In Visual Studio 2010 and later, C++ projects use MSBuild.
Rather than excluding or including files based on the configuration, it would be simpler to use a preprocessor directive to conditionally compile the contents of the file. E.g., wrap the entire contents of the file in:
#ifdef MY_32BIT_BUILD_MACRO
// Source file contents here
#endif
And likewise with a macro for 64-bit builds. When using Visual C++, you can use the _M_IX86 and _M_X64 predefined macros to detect whether you are compiling for x86 or x64, respectively.
Alternatively, you could add a Condition property to the ClCompile item for the particular source file in the project file, and have it only included in the build when certain properties are set. I think that conditional compilation within the source file is a better option, though, unless you have complex rules that you need to use to determine whether to include a file or not.
In your solution, you can set project dependencies to ensure that one project is built before another. Right-click the solution, select Properties, and browse to Common Properties -> Project Dependencies. Dependencies can also be specified in a project file.
You can execute the output of a build by using a post-build task. Right-click the project, select Properties, and browse to Configuration Properties -> Build Events. The Post-Build event can be used to execute a command when the build has completed.
Rather than renaming an executable after build, it's easier to just have the build produce an executable with the right name. In the Project properties, under Configuration Properties -> General, the Target Name property can be used to set the name of the primary build output.

Is there a way to extract info from vs project, eg cl.exe command line

Since I write a command line program to check cpp files, and it need lib path and include path of those cpp files.
How can I get the include and lib path info from visual studio project? Our project uses property sheets to make up those information.
It is made up from 3 distinct sources:
Tools + Options, Projects and Solutions, VC++ Directories. In turn built up from several registry keys
the settings in your .vsprops project property sheets
the settings in your .vcproj project
The first part is the hardest, you can get it by running vc\vsvarsall.bat. The .vsprops and .vcproj files are XML, easy to parse.
If you just want to find out what the command line should look like then you can get it from the buildlog.htm file, produced when building from the IDE. Or you could use vcbuild.exe on the command line to build your project from the .vcproj file. Or you could build using devenv.exe /build.
Check out the Visual Studio project files - they're typically only XML files, so you should be able to extract out whatever you need from those, really. Just a matter of understanding and parsing your XML contents in the project file, really.

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