Is there dependency generation flag for MSVC like gcc's -M

Question

Hello,

Is there dependency generation flag for MSVC like gcc's -M flag.

Every C++ compiler I have ever used had this kind of flag. How can I create dependencies automatically with MSVC cl compiler.

1. I'm interested for only latest compiler versions i.e. MSVC9 or later but if it works with MSVC8 it is fine as well.
2. If there is built-in external tool to do this (I mean, not cl), it would be fine as well

Answer 1

You may be able to use:

/showIncludes show include file names

although you will probably also need some additional filtering afterwards to get the format that you need.

Answer 2

This batch script may be what you and I have been looking for, though I have not tested it.

Pass file as %1 and include path as %2

@ECHO %1: \
@FOR /F "tokens=1,2,3,*" %%A IN ('cl /nologo /c %1 /Zs /showIncludes /I%2') DO @IF NOT "%%D"=="" echo %%D \

Outputs:

filename.c: \
header.h \
someotherheader.h