In Visual Studio 2013/VC++ for a statically linked executable, how do I override a property setting, when it is in bold( not inherited) by using a property sheet? I cannot edit the vcxproj file as it is auto generated and direct edits are lost when it is generated.
Details:
I have a Visual studio solution that contains two projects:
Dependency.vcxproj --> Generates Dependency.lib which is a static library.
MyProg.vcxproj --> Links to Dependency.lib and generates MyProg.exe
Of these, Dependency.vcxproj is auto generated and I do not have control over its generation( It is generated from a build script every time I run it). I see that It has Optimization set to O2 and also has Debug Information Format set to none. ( Both of these are in bold - so I assume they have been explicitly turned off). However, to allow for debug, I want to override these properties and set Optimization Disabled and Debug Information Format to /Zi when I am building it as part of my solution.
I tried overriding it using a .props file for the project, but the values are not overridden - I read somewhere that a property needs to inherit for a props sheet to override.
Is there any way to override such an already modified property without editing the vcxproj file itself?
You need to make sure you lib project is actually using your .props file. Means, it has to be included in the project. If you want to override already defined property with .props, this .props needs to be included after the property is set to override it. Basically .props work similar to text inclusion.
Another option could be to use .user file to override the properties (.user may be already included into generated .vcxproj, with condition "if exists"). But anyways you need to find a way to include your file re-defining the linker properties into the .vcxproj file.
Normally, you use "debug" vs "release" configurations to allow/disallow debugging. Maybe you just need to select "debug" configuration for your solution (this one can be found in the toolbar, a combo box in Visual studio) and then build?
If this is not the case, I would say the easiest way out may be modifying the script you use to generate the project to generate the project you want.
Related
I am currently trying to expand our installation program with an option for the user to specify the name of the program group where shortcuts are created under the start menu. (I am aware that this is a somewhat outdated concept)
I am using InstallShield 2015.
I created a localizable property named [PROGRAMGROUP_NAME]. This has automatically created an {ID_STRING46} which I've set to the desired default value. So far so good.
I managed to create a custom dialog with an edit control, which is linked to the above property.
Now comes the tricky part: Under Shortcuts, under "Programs Menu" I first want to add a folder with the program group name, under which to place several shortcuts.
If I enter [PROGRAMGROUP_NAME] that is literally what the name becomes. If I use {ID_STRING46}, it uses the default value, and not what I've entered in the dialog.
Incidentally, when I tried to rename ID_STRING46 to something more meaningful, other things started going wrong so I've left that as is.
What is going wrong here? How do I get the value of the property to be used for the folder name?
EDIT
I am trying to use a custom action now, but I have trouble defining it. My Dialog that sets the property is after CostFinalize, so I assume I have to use SetDirectory - but I have trouble defining it. I get an error stating "could not access network location "
EDIT
I've managed to progress a step. I have manually added a directory with key DIRECTORY_PROGRAM_GROUP (important that it's all caps to make it public) to the directory table. Then, I use a custom action to set that directory to the desired value [ProgramMenuFolder][PROGRAM_GROUP_NAME] after I've run my dialog, and I've modified the shortcut to be created in that folder.
Seems to work great, however, now the program group is no longer removed when uninstalling...
Shortcuts are installed to folders, and the name of the folders below ProgramMenuFolder become the program group as you describe it. So you will need to either build up the Directory table (either directly---note that the DefaultDir column is localizable, and there may already be a string you can update---or through the Files and Folders view) to do what you want, or use custom actions (set property, if before costing; set directory, if after costing) to adjust the location to which your shortcut is installed.
As for the problems renaming ID_STRING46, odds are you didn't update a reference after you changed the name of the string. The simplest way to track down where these are may be to examine differences in the built installer (perhaps using InstallShield's MSI Diff) and then update the relevant references using the direct editor if you can't find them in the normal views.
I've exported an orchestration template using Visual Studio 2012, based on one I previously constructed. It generates a .zip with the following .vstemplate file:
<VSTemplate Type="Item" Version="2.0.0"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005">
<TemplateData>
<Name>TESTOrchestration</Name>
<Description>Custon Orchestration</Description>
<Icon>Icon.ico</Icon>
<ProjectType>Biztalk</ProjectType>
<DefaultName>TESTOrchestration.odx</DefaultName>
</TemplateData>
<TemplateContent>
<ProjectItem TargetFileName="$fileinputname$.odx" ReplaceParameters="true">Orchestration.odx</ProjectItem>
</TemplateContent>
Using this item template in VS2012 creates an orchestration with the properties shown in the fig. below.
Notice the namespace is that of the original project from which the template was exported.
I want to set the default namespace of this item to include the project name (or even better the path leading to this item within the project). After searching I've yet to find a working example of how to accomplish this in a BizTalk item, namely an .odx.
Thank you for taking the time to read my question. I really hope you will be able to help me with this.
After searching and tinkering around I found out how to accomplish this.
When you export a template from Visual Studio two files are created, a .vstemplate and a template of the exported item, in this case a .odx. In order to alter the namespace, and other attributes, you need to edit this second file and add the information you want.
It is also possible to pass dynamic values by using template parameters in the form of $parameter$, which are documented in Microsoft's library.
So, for example, if you wanted to modify the namespace to include the project name, you would have to edit the exported .odx file and add the parameter $safeprojectname$ or $rootnamespace$ to dynamically set the namespace uppon creation of a new item based on the template.
I have a MonoTouch project where I want to include a reference to some native ios libraries that are only used for testing & debugging. I do not need these refereces to be compiled into the release build.
I've tried editing the .csproj file to have a Condition for the ItemGroup that links in the Native References, but they seem to be ignored.
<ItemGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' ">
<NativeReference Include="some path">
<IsCxx>false</IsCxx>
<Kind>Static</Kind>
</NativeReference>
I suppose there could be some way using the Additional mtouch arguments option in the project Options window. I am unsure though.
Does anyone know how I can link a native reference for a specific build configuration only in MonoDevelop?
MonoDevelop let you provide different Addtional mtouch arguments for every configuration it defines for your project. In general it means each of the four: [Debug|Release]|iPhone[Simulator] could use different settings.
If you're manually adding a static library then it's easy to add (or remove) it from a specific target.
However if you're using bindings made with the new [LinkWith] support then those additional arguments are automagically made for you. There could be ways to hack around this (e.g. changing the Build Action) but I did not try them out.
I have multiple native C++ projects, one of them is a dll project, and I want to test it.
The problem is that the generated .lib file only contains the definitions for the public interface of the dll, but I would like to test the projects internals.
Since referencing the project does not work (it only works for static libraries) is there a way to add the the generated objs directly in my testing project ?
Also I know that I could include all the source code files in the referenced project. But is there a way to do this considering that the referenced project might change. I would like a method that does not force me to mange each file manually.
I have done some research and I found some answers like in this question:
Reusing object files in Visual Studio 2005
but since I have many small classes exposing all the classes is a bit to tedious.
I found that I can set a Pre Link Event in the Build Event menu.
This allows me to use the following command:
lib -out:"../Debug/tempAllDllObjects.lib" "../MyDLLProject/Debug/*.obj"
now, even if my project is a DLL project I have an additional .lib file that contains all the objects in my project. All I have to do is reference the newly created lib file. This way I can link with all the objects in my DLL project even if they are not in the public interface.
As a note the command can also be set on the DLL project as a Postbuild Event this will increase the efficiency since now the lib file is only generated when changes occur.
I'm currently porting a gcc project to Visual C++. It's defined in a CMake file, and I have created a Visual C++ property sheet to aid in compatibility (GccCompat.props). Everytime the Visual C++ project files are regenerated by CMake, the property sheet has to be added manually, since I don't know how to add it automatically. So, the question is:
How can I tell CMake to add a property sheet to the generated Visual C++ solution?
This functionality has made it into the nightly build of CMake (https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/commit/e390991846825799e619e072a28f1da58b7c89ba), although not into a stable release yet. Theoretically, it will be in the next release, and CMake releases are made relatively frequently.
To use, you would set the VS_USER_PROPS property on a target. Eg. set_target_properties(foo PROPERTIES VS_USER_PROPS "${props_file}").
However, it doesn't appear that you can use multiple property sheets with this option, and, it replaces the default user property file ($(UserRootDir)\\Microsoft.Cpp.$(Platform).user.props). To workaround this, property sheets can include other property sheets, so, you could make a 'master' property sheet which includes any other property sheets that you would like to use (including the default user property sheet).
This question is a little bit old but I have recently stumbled upon the same problem while integrating GStreamer into my project. GStreamer comes with a set of extremely well prepared and high quality Property Sheets and I wanted to use them instead of hacking things around in CMake.
Fortunately, this issue is only limited to Windows and Visual Studio. So here's my solution:
The idea is to use Visual Studio's .user file feature. CMake does not generate this file so it's pretty safe to generate it at configure-time. At configure time you may generate a file that has the EXACT name as your project file but ends with a .user extension.
Partial Solution:
If your project file is named my_project.vcxproj, you need to create another file next to it called my_project.vcxproj.user. According to MSDN:
A user file (.vcxproj.user) stores user-specific properties, for
example, debugging and deployment settings. The vcxproj.user file
applies to all projects for a particular user.
The contents of this file for importing property sheets is something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="/path/to/sheet1.props" />
<Import Project="/path/to/sheet2.props" />
</Project>
Not flawless, but works until CMake starts supporting property sheets. The file can be created by using CMake's file command at configure-time.
Potential Caveat:
I have noticed when I add property sheets this way, sometimes they do not show in the Property Manager window (might be a bug in Visual Studio Community 2013) but they always are imported properly and dependencies are resolved correctly.
Not sure which properties you need. A few could be set directly in CMake, like in this example for multiple configurations:
set (CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES "A;B;C;D" CACHE STRING "Configurations" FORCE)
foreach( OUTPUTCONFIG ${CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES} )
set (CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_${OUTPUTCONFIG} "/ZI /Od")
set (CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS_${OUTPUTCONFIG} "/debug")
endforeach( OUTPUTCONFIG CMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES )
Apart from variables listed here, I think CMake has no possibility to attach property sheets.
in my master props file main.props:
<ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets">
<Import Project="$(UserRootDir)\Microsoft.Cpp.$(Platform).user.props" Condition="exists('$(UserRootDir)\Microsoft.Cpp.$(Platform).user.props')" Label="LocalAppDataPlatform" />
</ImportGroup>
then, in CMakeLists.txt:
set_target_properties(foo PROPERTIES VS_USER_PROPS "main.props")