Is it possible to add a path to the project VC++ Directories to load a external library but have the paths relative to the solution root?
I ask this as I work off a USB that I work on at home and take to uni, and at uni I am always on different systems (witch ever is free) I would like to works wit ha external library, but every time i sit at a new computer I need to set everything up...
I am looking for a way to place the entire external library inside a dir in my solution folder, and then set the project paths relative to that.. so were ever I load the solution, on any system. it can still find the library and compile.
It is possible using subst:
Map your library dir to a virtual drive:
subst Z: C:\dev\lib\
From Visual Studio, direct references to Z:\ (e.g.: Z:\some.dll is actually C:\dev\lib\some.dll)
Related
we need to deploy some custom DLL on Win7 Desktop computers that will be used for VBA.
Now, what would be the best location to store these files ?
Surely not in the standard Win locations such as Program Files or SystemXX folders...
Thanks a lot in advance for your answers
I have been working on a project which uses custom dlls and I place them in the workspace folder or the folder I am working from.
I use python(ctypes) so I have included them in the package that I am creating.
You can add the path of your dll location to the path variable as well if you like
I am trying to automate the builds for our software. We have 2 category of softwares, one is containing all project in C# and other on c++. All the solutions of c# projeects are in different branch. we have automated builds for C# solutions, each check-in builds and creates the binaries of all C# projects. However, C++ projects is kind of manual process so we are trying to automate it. But the problem is that all c++ projects contains relative path for the header files they refer. hence before compiling the projects we need to map the root directory to some drive. Suppose all our source code lies in C:\software2\ then we need to subst C:\software2\ with K: drive ( any other drive ) before proceeding. and should open the compilation project from K: drive only, otherwise it would not compile.
My difficulty is that when we move our c++ projects to Team Foundation server for automation builds then following thing happens. All the source code is copied over to build agent server. from there it runs the projects and generates the binaries. So, how I modify the build definition\ template such that after copying the source it maps that path and starts compilation from that mapped drive only. Any help is appreciated.
I just accomplished this recently with a custom activity placed inside the build template.
Use the activity to subst the directory and insert the drive in the "sourcesdirectory" field of the workspace creation.
<namespace:activity DisplayName="Creating Subst's here"/>
<mtbwa:CreateWorkspace ......... SourcesDirectory="["Z:\"]">
Sorry I can't go into more detail. Hope this helps!
I am wanting to setup a project and potentially an existing project to be SVN version controlled. I am using uberSVN for the svn server. I have installed AnkhSVN for visual studio.
Currently, the team I am working with is using visual source safe and one of the problems we have is when someone adds a reference to a DLL, it modifies the project file as you would expect, but our paths are different between different team members (XP boxes, 7, you get the idea). What I was wanting is making the project file ignored when checking in/out so that we don't mess up the references for everyone else.
Is there a way I can make SVN ignore these files within the plugin? One of the side effects of this is a person would not know if a new file has been added in the project as this modifies the project file. Other than telling everyone "hey, you need to manually add this file to your project," is there a cleaner way of doing it?
If you copy the DLL to a folder inside your VS solution folder before linking to it, I think the project link will be relative not absolute. So you can check the DLL and the updated VS project into your configuration management and everyone should be able to share it.
You should start using virtual paths for development work; that way each team member can keep work-related files at any physical location but the virtual path (the one seen by tools is always the same.
For example, my team does all work under Q:\. My physical source for work is under physical path C:\Work\<project_name> where the project_name part depends on the project. When I want to work on a given project, I map the Q:\ virtual path to the right physical path using
subst q: c:\work\project_name
When I need to switch, I run a similar command. This way there's no need to worry about different paths on different computers. This worked very well for the whole team and eliminated most issues you describe above. The only thing you need to make sure is that everyone always uses the virtual path (Q:), not the physical path when dealing with project-related files. For my team it took about a week to get used to that, after that there were no more problems.
Your project file is an important part of your project so ignoring it in the source control tool will eventually lead to problems. I recommend you don't do it (even if you can).
Edit:
If you have DLL-s in different physical folders on different machines, the best choice is to copy those DLL-s (and their dependencies) to a known location. It's fine that they can't run from there, as long as the compiler finds them.
This known location could be inside your virtual path or a common physical path (if the same DLL-s are needed for multiple projects). You can use Dependency Walker to determine what dependencies you need for native DLL-s and Reflector for .NET DLL-s.
If the size/number of DLL-s is so large that creating a copy is not an option, you can actually tell AnkhSVN to ignore certain versioned files when committing changes. Right-click the file, select Subversion > Move to Change List > ignore-on-commit. After this the file will show up in the commit dialog unselected but you can still commit it if you manually select it.
I've got a relatively simple project that is under source control (svn), and I wanted to create an installer. I know that I could (should) use WiX, but as I'm new to creating installers I thought it'd be easier to just use the built-in Visual Studio (2010) Setup and Deployment Wizard.
Unfortunately, it seems that files including external (non-project maintained) documentation, configuration files, and "Content" files are added with absolute paths. This, of course, is suboptimal. I searched the web, but found only the same question, without an answer. Another stackoverflow user seems to have asked a similar question, but the only answer, which suggests ClickOnce, seems off-base (I'd like to have an MSI that I distribute not a web-based installation).
Does anyone know how (or whether) this can be fixed?
With VS2005, sometimes the paths stored in the vdproj file were absolutes, and sometimes relatives. In my case, it seemed to be related to whether the files were accessed via the canonical path or not. Here's a concrete example:
Source is on C:\Views\builddir, open solution C:\Views\builddir\solution.sln and add files from C:\Views\builddir\.. and VS2005 would add relative paths into the vdproj file. However, if you map that builddir to a letter drive, for example, make a subst from C:\Views\builddir to s:, open the solution via S:\solution.sln, and then add files by navigating to S:\.., VS2005 would insert absolute paths into the vdproj files. Whether VS2005 displayed paths as absolutes or relatives had no relation to what it stored in the vdproj files.
So, it may well be that the problem comes down to what path you're using to open that solution.. opening \\server\shareddir\solution.sln might get different behavior than mapping \\server\shareddir to W: and opening w:\solution.sln.
You can always add the files, then use a text editor (e.g. notepad) to change the absolute paths in the vdproj file to relative ones. You'll be fine until you change that project again.
MS doesn't seem to really fix minor bugs like this so much as rewrite the code to introduce an entirely different set of bugs, so VS2010 might still act this way.
FYI, why would one want to map an absolute path to your builddir? It was a holdover from the bad old days when VS didn't do anything correct with relative paths.
As tzerb mentioned, the main source of confusion might be that paths show up as absolute under the property window inside VS, but when you look into the actual VDPROJ file you should see the paths show up as relative. However, as patbob mentioned, I believe the paths ARE stored as absolute when they come from a different letter drive.
It might be easier now but when you start bumping into the limitations of the tool it's going to get real hard. Let's not even talk about the bad practices it will encourage which could end up being real hard for the poor end user installing your product. You've got Visual Studio 2010 so InstallShield LE ( free ) would be a better choice.
Otherwise, to answer your question, it will only use absolute paths if it can't caculate a relative path. ( for example c:\foo\foo.vdproj consuming d:\foo.txt consuming c:\test\foo.txt should automatically be ....\test\foo.txt )
BTW, if you decide to check out WiX and want some "easy" check out my IsWiX project on CodePlex. I'm trying to bridge the feature gap between InstallShield and WiX.
I want to put my dependent files in the app directory.
I seem to remember that you can force VB6 to use the files in the local directory only.
Any hints?
You may also want to try setting up Reg-Free COM for your project. There's a freeware called Unattended Make My Manifest that will do most of the work for you.
Placing component libraries in the EXE folder (with or without .local files) can be deleterious to the hygiene of target machines too.
VB6 programs will register the components here via the self-reg entrypoint behind your back if they are not previously registered. Then if the application is moved or removed you leave the user with a broken reigistration - possibly fatal to subsequently installed applications using some of the same components. This is probably fine though for application specific components, i.e. your own DLL or OCX that will never be needed by another application.
The .local trick was really not meant for use with VB6 programs and if it is used your installer needs to be aware and properly install and register the components if they are not already on the machine. It was meant as a manual hack to get around DLL version compatibility problems on individual machines, not a deployment strategy.
Move up to SxS application and assembly manifests (Reg-Free COM and more) for a better solution. DLL/COM Redirection (.local) was a good try but it has many warts.
Clay Nichol's answer about the search order is not quite correct. That search order only applies to non-COM components. I.e. only some DLLs, and not OCXs. If you register your COM objects, they will be used from the directory where they are registered regardless of what's in the local directory, unless you use reg-free COM or a .local file.
EDIT:
MakeMyManifest is well spoken of as an automatic tool for creating manifests for VB6 projects, haven't tried it myself.
DirectCOM also has fans, again I haven't tried it.
EDIT The MMM website is down. I see here that the author was having trouble with their hosting and has provided another location to get Make My Manifest - download it here.
There is a semi-automatic technique to generate reg-free COM manifests. You can create the manifests with Visual Studio 2008 (you can use a free version like Visual Basic Express Edition). Then make a couple of edits by hand to make the manifests suitable for use from VB6. See this section of this MSDN article for step-by-step instructions - ignore the rest of the article which is about ClickOnce.
It can be sort of confusing because every version of windows, the rules change. Older versions of Windows search the path before the current directory.
A simple solution without manifests:
If your executable file is A.EXE, add a (0-byte, empty) file in the same directory named A.EXE.local -- for older versions of Windows this puts the app directory ahead of the path in the search order.
Found it myself:
Windows does look in the App Directory first:
If SafeDllSearchMode is enabled, the search order is as follows:
The directory from which the application loaded.
The system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
The 16-bit system directory. There is no function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
The current directory.
The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. Note that this does not include the per-application path specified by the App Paths registry key. The App Paths key is not used when computing the DLL search path.
If SafeDllSearchMode is disabled, the search order is as follows:
1. The directory from which the application loaded.
2. The current directory.
3. The system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
4. The 16-bit system directory. There is no function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
5. The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
6. The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. Note that this does not include the per-application path specified by the App Paths registry key. The App Paths key is not used when computing the DLL search path.
according to : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682586.aspx
But you can redirect where it looks for .dll's using a Manifest:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa375365(VS.85).aspx