C++ code browsing

Question

Is there any simple way of finding the implementation of a virtual method in a IDE like Visual Studio. Finding references and reference from one class to other consumes a whole lot of time. Is there a quicker way of using the IDE or in general any IDE.

Also if there has been only one project changed can I quickly get the executable linking only that project's lbirary since all the other projects(libraries) remain the same.

Further to in general any suggestions for effective C++ code browsing. Am trying to understand some open source code and fully lost..

Answer 1

Second the comment about Visual Assist X - this works well on any version of Visual Studio.

'Build Project' should automatically be incremental - ie. only what is changed, and what's dependent on it should get built - unless you explicitly select 'Clean Project' then 'Build Project', or 'Rebuild Project'.

If you are seeing unexpected stuff get rebuilt after selecting 'Build Project', you should identify the very first project that gets built via output in the 'Build' window, and check its 'Properties' to see if there is some unexpected or unneeded dependency that is triggering unnecessary rebuild of that. Once an upstream project gets built, all projects that are dependent on it will too.

Answer 2

In Visual Studio, go to Tools -> Options -> Keyboard. There you can assign short cut keys for the operations you want to do. If you type Edit.FindAllReferences, Edit.GotoDefinition, Edit.GotoDeclaration, View.NavigateForward, View.NavigateBackward, etc in the "Show commands" text box, it will list the assigned shortcut key. If nothing is defined, you can define and assign it.

ctags is an open source tool for code browsing. You can check that one too.