How to create a vcproj (or equiv) in Visual Studio from our CMake build?

[PhilipOakley]

The new CMake method for building Git for Windows (GfW) in Visual Studio (2019) works nicely, but unfortunately many support tools are expecting there to be (I suspect) vcproj and maybe sln files also present so those extension tools can do their work.

I'm trying to get Sourcetrail integrated with the current release to help browse the git code. It had worked previously (year ago+, using vs/master branch, VS 2015, Sourcetrail v2019).

I raised an issue over there CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail#1173 and tried their suggestion of using a Clang helper tool, but that also doesn't think we have created a project either.

Is there a way to get either our CMake invocation, or a Visual Studio command to generate the old style vcproj files so that extension tools that expect them continue to work?

[dscho]

Yes, you can follow the advice in CMakeLists.txt:

    mkdir -p contrib/buildsystems/out
    cd contrib/buildsystems/out
    cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

This requires CMake to be installed separately, and will result in a git.sln in contrib/buildsystems/out/.

[PhilipOakley]

@dscho, some success

I added set(ZLIB_ROOT "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/compat/vcbuild/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows") just before the find_package(ZLIB REQUIRED), and this has allowed Zlib to be found,
and the .sln to be generated,
and Visual Studio builds that,
and the Sourcetrail Extension to detect the solution!

Some progress, but still need to see how to clear the /../.. path element (and confirm it was the cause..).

[PhilipOakley]

Found it: NOT EXISTS ${VCPKG_ARCH}

	if(NOT EXISTS ${VCPKG_ARCH})
	set(VCPKG_ARCH "x64-windows") # default from vcpkg_install.bat
	endif()

Q: can vcpkg tell cmake what the installed arch is?

[dscho]

Apparently this is not something CMake can tell. If you need to configure it for anything but x64-windows, you need to set it on the command line (see .github/workflows/main.yml and/or .github/workflows/git-artifacts.yml for details).

[PhilipOakley]

If you need to configure it for anything but x64-windows, you need to set it on the command line

At the moment it looks like I even need to set VCPKG_ARCH for x64-windows on the command line as well. However if the vcpkg isn't installed, and VCPKG_ARCH isn't set, then the vcpkg_install.bat will assume that x64-windows is the one to install (there's a line in the .bat file to check & select it), but VCPKG_ARCH still isn't set.

I do see that the VCPKG_TARGET_ARCH (note the TARGET in the middle) is set to x64-windows when I use the CMake-gui and its Advance listing, but I'm not sure when CMake picks that up, and whether that's the variable I could use to determine which vcpkg target has already been installed.

If CMake checks the vcpkg install when it starts then that may be a 'deliberate' option to chose, or I can just simply add the if() lines, and perhaps a user message, to get past that problem.

I see that the .yml files (thanks for the pointer) use the vcpkg_copy_dlls.bat rather than the vcpkg_install.bat that is used for the simple cmake invocation, which maybe where some of the confusion come from about the x64-windows defaults.

[PhilipOakley]

to correct myself, it's not VCPKG_TARGET_ARCH but VCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET that is set to x64-windows when watching the cmake-gui.

[PhilipOakley]

The discussion continued in #3306, where the CMakeLists.txt file is being updated such that opening the git folder in Visual Studio(VS), is sufficient for VS to properly load the project and allows the project to be built via the 'build' menu.