josh's WebLogVisual C++ IDE from the trenchesunderstanding the VC project system part V: building, tools and dependencies- February 13, 2004 okay, let's talk about building c++ projects. several things go into building a project: a list of files, the tools that are run, the switches to set on those tools and how we know when to execute those tools. the files and the set of switches (properties) i've talked about before, see my earlier blog entries. build tools is a slightly more interesting subject. each command-line tool that is run as part of the build (cl.exe, link.exe, midl.exe et al) is wrapped internally by a COM object. (see.http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/13/72844.aspx feedback loop- February 11, 2004 Stephane makes some more good points in his last feedback. i have only one comment, which is that while everything he says is true, it ignores my point that these are simply not things we have designed for. we don't have the resources to do everything, and so far we've had more important areas to focus on. you can't try and build an automated build framework or a deployment and install framework when you don't yet have a robust projectbuild system, for instance. in any case, while features like.http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/11/71637.aspx feedback on Stephane's comments: activex controls, references, deployment- February 10, 2004 Stephane has responded with some cogent observations and questions, see the feedback to my response yesterday. let's see if i can (briefly) cover the issues he brings up one at a time: first off, the handling of managed references to activex controls and the differences between how they are handled in c and vc project systems. to be clear, managed projects referencing activex all treat them the same way, it is native c++ projects that function differently. in managed projects the CLSID for the.http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/10/71013.aspx understanding the VC project system part IV: properties and property inheritance- February 9, 2004 picking up from where we left off, there are a couple of "special" macros: $(Inherit) and $(NoInherit). to understand what they are and how they work, you first need to understand how inheritance works with properties. earlier we looked at the property pages dialog for a project. i said one thing in that post that isn't quite true: "if the property value is not bold, the property is in its default state and has not been set". the whole truth is that it means it hasn't been set at that level in.http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/09/70335.aspx feedback: assembly references and paths- February 9, 2004 in feedback on my last post, Stephane asks about assembly references and shareable paths in csproj and vcproj files. c projects in VS 2002 and 2003 store in the project file a path that is relativized to the project directory. this is called the 'hint path', if memory serves. also, in the .user file for the project (a file intended only for the particular user, not to be shared or checked into source code control) the directory of the reference is stored. as long as all references can be...http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/09/70210.aspx understanding the VC project system part III: macros, environment variables and sharing- February 5, 2004 "macros", in the context of the project system, refer to "$(name)" formatted variables that can be used in the project's properties. in VC 5 and 6 there was support for using these kind of macros in some properties. in VS.NET 2002 we extended the support to virtually every property in the project system. there are two kinds of macros in VS 2002 and 2003: a set of macros that are provided by the project system, such as "$(ProjectDir)" and "$(ConfigurationName)", and macros that are actually...http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/05/68366.aspx feedback- February 5, 2004 it's great to see that i've already gotten some feedback! i'll go ahead an provide some brief comments now: Jerry and Jamie asked about msbuild support for VC in whidbey (the upcoming version of VS). i'll talk about this more in an upcoming entry, when i get to upcoming features, but the short version of the story is that, in whidbey, msbuild will not include first-class support for VC projects. we will be shipping a separate command-line builder "vcbuild" which can build VC projects and spawn.http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/05/68213.aspx understanding the VC project system part II: configurations and the project property pages dialog- February 4, 2004 my last entry talked about the files that are contained in a project. this entry is going to discuss the next important collection of items in the project: the configurations. a configuration is really nothing more than a collection of property values. for instance, in a "debug" configuration the "optimization" property on the C++ compiler tool is usually set to "disabled" (Od), while in a "release" configuration it is usually set to something like "maximize speed" (O2). because they control...http://blogs.msdn.com/josh_/archive/2004/02/04/67705.aspx |