MS Visual Studio Project header files...

Question

I am fairly new to developing C/C++ code in MSVS but one of the things that has already confused me is why, after adding a set of source and header files to my project such that they show up respectively under the MSVS folders 'Source Files' and 'Header Files', do I subsequently have to tell the compiler where my header files are under 'Project->properties->C/C++->General'. It seems to me that MSVS should already attempt to resolve any 'include "..."' statements by first looking thru the set of header files I have included in the project.

Anybody care to comment on the logic being used here?

Thanks, Travis

Answer 1

Actually, adding your header files in the so called "Header Files" folder is optional. Even without doing the same you can just specify the header path in "Project->Properties->...." and it will still work.

You may be thinking from the perspective of only your project's header files which can be added in the "Header Files" folder, what about a big project having several third party libraries, you definitely cannot go and keep adding each every header file into your folder.

So, to keep all the includes unified at one configuration, this way should have been selected.

All the stuff quoted above is just my understanding. I don't have any evidence to support this. So, My apologies in advance is this is wrong. Don't bombard me with Downvotes please. : )

Answer 2

The finding of header files has to be deterministic. There can be multiple files with the same name in your project. In that case, how would you want the compiler to solve this confusion ?

One other thing is that having directories where to look for header files is a historical feature of (pretty much ?) all compilers.

This leaves you with the only use of header files in your visual studio project : being able to open them easily from Visual Studio. That's it !

Answer 3

First of all, have you created a new C/C++ project? If so it should create a directory at a place of your choice. Once this is done you can right click on your project (in the solution window in MSVS) and add a new file to your project. For example, you can add a source file (.cpp) and a header file (.h) to the project. Once this is done, you must write #include "yourfile.h" in your source file to be able to include the header file to your source file. Note that you can add new files and existing files. I hope this helps!

Answer 4

The project files are used by the IDE to keep track of your files, but the compiler doesn't have access to that information. The include file path is passed to each source file when it compiles.

Answer 5

I think that it's because having a header in a directory doesn't necessarily mean that you want that directory searched for any other headers. That particular header could be included by specifying the path to the header, or it might be implicitly found because it's in the same directory as the file including it.

All that said (and it's just speculation), I think what you want is a reasonable request (it's something that's caused me a tiny bit of frustration before) - at least as an option or by being asked.

Answer 6

i had never seen this problem.once you created a project and add any same project folder header file in IDE to your project,you can add header file by #include and compile your source code. if the desired header file doesn't exist in same folder that u create your project,u should add header directory in project properties as you said:)