How can I determine which dependency would cause a C++ compilation unit to be rebuilt?

Question

I have a legacy C++ application with a deep graph of #includes. Changes to any header file often cause recompiles of seemingly unrelated source files.

The application is built using a Visual Studio 2005 solution (sln) file.

Can MSBUILD be invoked in a way that it reports which dependency(ies) are causing a source file to be recompiled?

Is there any other tool that might be able to help?

NOTE: I'm only looking for a tool to tell me why a file would be rebuilt, not some restrospective magic telling me why it was rebuilt.

Answer 1

You probably need Include Finder (http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Include-Finder-Download-83403.html).

Answer 2

There is a utility called makedepend. It is available on Unix platforms. On Window you can find a similar perl script here.

I do not think MSBUILD takes care of dependency.

Answer 3

If you dial up the verbosity to detailed or above (Tools>Options>Project>Build or /v:detailed) then MSBuild will log, just before it runs the compiler, exactly what header file or source file caused it to run the compiler.

Is that what you're asking for?

Dan/MSBuild