C++ Team Blog

C++ with Visual Studio and WSL2

ErikaJanuary 14, 2021Jan 14, 202101/14/21

Our team released native support for C++ with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in Visual Studio in 2019. “Native support” means that all commands are executed locally instead of over a SSH connection. Since then, WSL2 has been announced and we’ve received questions about our support for WSL2 in Visual Studio. The purpose of this ...

Build Throughput Series: Template Metaprogramming Fundamentals

Xiang FanJanuary 14, 2021Jan 14, 202101/14/21

Template metaprogramming is popular and seen in many code bases. However, it often contributes to long compile times. When investigating build throughput improvement opportunities in large codebases, our finding is that more than one million template specializations and template instantiations is quite common and often provides optimization ...

Faster C++ Iteration Builds

Russ KeldorphJanuary 6, 2021Jan 6, 202101/6/21

We made improvements to C++ link time earlier in Visual Studio 2019, and we have more improvements to tell you about. As of version 16.7, we measure up to 5X improvement in some incremental linking and debugging scenarios and up to a 1.5X speedup in full linking. These represent some of the improvements The Coalition saw in their recent ...

Configure IntelliSense with CMake Toolchain Files in Visual Studio 2019 16.9 Preview 2

ErikaDecember 8, 2020Dec 8, 202012/8/20

Visual Studio can now configure IntelliSense in CMake projects based on the value of CMake variables set by CMake toolchain files. These improvements provide automatic IntelliSense configuration when a CMake toolchain file is used for configuration and build. For example, Visual Studio can now provide IntelliSense for CMake projects using an ...

Visual Studio Code C++ Extension: ARM and ARM64 support

Julia ReidDecember 8, 2020Dec 8, 202012/8/20

The latest release of the Visual Studio Code C++ extension brings C++ IntelliSense and build support for Windows ARM64, Linux ARM and Linux ARM64 architectures. What’s more, you can download VS Code builds for ARM and ARM64 architectures, meaning you can officially use VS Code and the C++ extension on a Raspberry Pi, Chromebook, Surface Pro ...

Conditionally Trivial Special Member Functions

Sy BrandNovember 20, 2020Nov 20, 202011/20/20

The C++ standards committee is currently focusing on adding features to the language which can simplify code. One small example of this in C++20 is conditionally trivial special member functions, which we added support for in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8. Its benefit isn’t immediately obvious unless you’ve been deep down the rabbit hole...

C++20 Features in Visual Studio 2019 versions 16.7 and 16.8

Daniel GriffingNovember 19, 2020Nov 19, 202011/19/20

What’s New We have continued our efforts to implement C++20 in the MSVC toolset, with noteworthy progress being made in VS (Visual Studio) 2019 v16.7 and VS 2019 v16.8. This blog post lists the features implemented since the C++20 Features and Fixes in VS 2019 16.1 through 16.6 blog post. This blog post will specifically focus on...

The Coalition Sees 27.9X Iteration Build Improvement with Visual Studio 2019

David LiNovember 16, 2020Nov 16, 202011/16/20

Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 3.2 introduces significant build and link time improvements. In this blog post, we detail how the team in The Coalition building Gears 5 tested the compile and link times in three different versions of Visual Studio.

A Tour of C++ Modules in Visual Studio

Will BuikOctober 29, 2020Oct 29, 202010/29/20

C++ module support has arrived in Visual Studio! Grab the latest Visual Studio Preview if you want to try it out. C++ modules can help you compartmentalize your code, speed up build times, and they work seamlessly, side-by-side with your existing code. This preview only supports C++ modules in the IDE for MSBuild projects. While the MSVC ...

Even More New Safety Rules in C++ Code Analysis

Hwi-sung ImOctober 28, 2020Oct 28, 202010/28/20

In Visual Studio version 16.8 Preview 3,  we have added a few safety rules to C++ Code Analysis that can find some common mistakes, which can lead to bugs ranging from simple broken features to costly security vulnerabilities. These new rules are developed around issues discovered in production software via ...