Is it possible that I can just compile all CPP files under a project and without linking etc. the project?
The only way I know to do this is by specify the /c switch when you compile the code. Unfortunately, this option is not available from within the Visual Studio development environment, so you'll need to build your code on the command line by calling cl.exe directly. To make things easy on yourself, use the Visual Studio Command Prompt to do so.
Not sure if it's possible to get MSBuild to do this, the documentation is unclear whether the limitation is Visual Studio itself or if it's a limitation of MSBuild. I haven't actually tried for myself.
Alternatively, you can build individual source files from within the IDE by pressing Ctrl+F7 (at least, assuming the default C++ development settings). If that fails, it's also available as the "Compile" option located in the "Build" menu.
I'm not sure whether this will do what you need, but may be worth a try: create a project for an executable (rather than a library) and include all cpp files in it. Add a main() function that just returns zero. Set the C++ optimisation option to 'optimise references' (/OPT:REF). This may just compile all the cpp files but effectively ignore them during the link stage since none of them are referenced by the application.
You don't say why you need to do this - is it because linking takes a huge amount of time?
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I am creating a vcxproj project to build C code (UEFI) which builds with custom build steps. I need the source C and H files to display with full IntelliSense support, then when I hit F5, I want the project to build if any source file changed, then start Debug. If nothing changed, just start the Debugger. The Build just needs to run my command line commands, I do not need Visual Studio to use its C compiler and Linker. It seems the only way to build with custom steps is to set Configuration Type to either Makefile or Utility.
One problem with Makefile project is that it always builds the NMake command line even if I did not touch any files. Is there a way to configure build so that it only builds if any of the source files changed, like with Application or Dynamic Library project types?
Another problem (only with Makefile project) is that it forces IntelliSense to some C++ mode that marks all my CHAR16* L"Strings" as errors: a value type of const wchar_t* cannot be used to initialize an entry of type "CHAR16*". There are Additional Options under NMake IntelliSense menu, but no matter what I put there makes no difference. There is no documentation about what the available switches are and their effect. Is it possible to configure a Makefile project to C mode? BTW, VS2013 does not have this problem, it is only VS2019 and VS2022.
Utility project type does not have the above-mentioned problem with IntelliSense, but it always returns "build up-to-date" even when I change source files, which should set a dirty flag and cause a build. The build only starts when I select Rebuild. Is it possible to configure a Utility project to build when a source file changed?
To automate C++ code quality analysis in our company, I've been asked to integrate Cppcheck tool with our SonarQube server (through the C++ Community plugin).
For the C++ part of our main product, in Visual Studio, we have a dozen of solutions, with almost a hundred of projects within each solution.
We use standard inherited property page macros like $(SolutionDir) and $(ProjectDir), and define our own custom (user-defined) macros as well (via Property Manager).
I'm currently writing Windows command line batch scripts to perform static code analysis separately on each solution. The idea is to run Cppcheck with an option like --project="solution_name.sln" and then run SonarQube Scanner to parse the generated XML output.
But there's a problem. It seems that Cppcheck doesn't recognize these $(SolutionDir) macros during include path resolution. (When run with --check-config option, it complains about missing include files.)
Unfortunately it turns out I even cannot supply additional include paths for a solution because the -I and --includes-file options are ignored when --project is specified.
How is Cppcheck supposed to be used with Visual Studio projects in an automated environment? I'm talking about command line interface (to be used on server side), not about interactive plugins (as used locally on developers' machines).
One possible way would be to create a Python script to preprocess the hundreds of project (*.vcxproj) files, replacing all these macros with real paths (each time after checking out from SVN and before executing Cppcheck). Or is there a proper way to make Cppcheck recognize Visual Studio macros?
Yes the --project is supposed to work. It's just that --project is a very new feature.
I would like to have a simple solution so I can reproduce easily.. Could you create some simple solution with such configuration? no real code is needed. I think a cpp file with just a #include and then an empty header might be enough. Configure it so that Visual Studio finds the header but Cppcheck doesn't.
Please attach it to the ticket orbitcowboy created.
I am working on SFML and I am curious about the option that I can compile it myself. I found it in tutorials, but from the first line I became confused:
CMake is an open-source meta build system. Instead of building SFML, it builds what builds SFML: Visual Studio solutions ...
There is a build option in visual studio too, is there any difference between that build and CMake build?
What does it mean that it builds what builds SFML? It means library files?
Visual studio solutions? What does it mean? As far as i know, when i open a new project it is within a solution and i can add new projects to this solution (I am confused about why there must be more than one project in a solution too!).
What does it mean that CMake builds a solution? And what is it for?
There is sourcecode. People want to compile it. It is difficult and annoying to type the compile commands into a terminal.
People invent build systems, to make 1.) more easy. For example make files or what Visual Studio integrates and stores in its files, called solution.
There are projects, that are cross-platform. They could provide make files, solution files, files for Xcode, Eclipse and so on. This becomes difficult and annoying.
People invent systems, that creates build system to ease 3.). From a common set of files, several different build systems can be steered.
In your actual case: CMake creates the solution file, you can open the solution file and built SFML with that.
CMake is a wonderful tool for cross-platform development without the hassle of maintaining separate build utilities. On Windows, CMake can create a Visual Studio solution file based on its CMakeLists.txt file. On Linux, generally CMake outputs a makefile. CMake is compatible with many build tools, I recommend reading more of there documentation on their website to gain more information.
Edit: Just to be more clear. CMake literally builds what builds SFML since it creates the Visual Studio solution used to build SFML.
A build in VS for a solution is building the library itself. A CMake build generates the VS solution with which you would use to build the library.
See 1.
A VS solution is the full buildable setup containing 1 or more projects. Solutions can contain multiple projects since VS has a limitation on only 1 output per project. If you want multiple outputs (e.g. 4 dlls) each output needs it's own project.
I'm having a hard time trying to build a F# project in Visual Studio that has dependencies downloaded with Paket. It raises several of the following errors (with different dlls each time):
Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "XPlot.Plotly.dll". Check to make sure the assembly exists on disk. If this reference is required by your code, you may get compilation errors. (Code=MSB3245)
For this very example, visual studio adds the option -r:C:\projects\StarWars-social-network-master\packages\XPlot.Plotly\lib\net45\XPlot.Plotly.dll. The file actually exists in my filesystem, so I don't know what I am doing wrong. Can anyone point me to a workaround?
Thank you.
From the directory name, I guess you're looking at Evelina Gabasova's Star Wars network analysis.
As far as I can tell, the project uses F# Script files and so you do not need to compile it at all. It is designed to be used with F# Interactive. Once you open the project, you can look at the individual script files *.fsx, select blocks of code and run them interactively - If you are using Visual Studio, this is done using Alt+Enter - other editors use either this or Ctrl+Enter (Xamarin Studio).
Many F# data analysis scripts follow this pattern - you're not really building a project that needs to be compiled and executed as a whole, so running bits of code from script files immediately makes a lot more sense in this context.
I need to be able to produce the makefile for my C++ project, although I cannot find how to do this within visual studio.
The common solution to this type of problem is to use a cross-platform build system that can generate platform appropriate build files. CMake is one example of this. It can be used to generate Solution and Project files on Windows and make files for Linux. It can also generate make files for mingw32. Note that this will be a fairly significant departure from your current set up and can take some time to get working correctly.