C++ Team Blog
The latest in C++, Visual Studio, VS Code, and vcpkg from the MSFT C++ team
Latest posts
CMake Support in Visual Studio – Configuration Templates
Visual Studio 2017 15.8 Preview 3 is now available and it includes several improvements to the CMake tools. In addition to a few fixes we have simplified the way you can configure your CMakeSettings.json file by adding configuration templates. If you are new to CMake in Visual Studio, check out how to get started. Configuration Templates for CMake If you have created a CMakeSettings.json file to customize your project’s settings in the past you might know that that file could be a little daunting. With both the Desktop and Linux workloads installed, the default CMakeSettings.json template was over 100 lines long...
New, experimental code analysis features in Visual Studio 2017 15.8 Preview 3
The Visual C++ team has been working to refresh our code analysis experience inside Visual Studio. We’re aiming to make these tools both more useful and natural to use and hope that they’ll benefit you no matter your workflow, style, or project type. Trying out new features In Visual Studio 2017 version 15.8 Preview 3, available in the Preview channel, we’ve introduced some new, in-progress code analysis features. These features are disabled by default, but you may enable them under Tools > Options > Text Editor > C++ > Experimental > Code Analysis. We encourage you to test them out and provide any...
Convert Macros to Constexpr
Visual Studio 2017 version 15.8 is currently available in preview. Today, Preview 3 has been released, and it comes with several features that improve the developer productivity experience. One key theme in 15.8 is code modernization, and macros are a key target for that. In 15.8 Preview 1, we announced the ability to expand macros in Quick Info tooltips, and now, for Preview 3, we are happy to announce a way to convert them to modern C++ constexpr expressions. The new preview includes a quick fix, accessible from the editor window, that identifies macros that can be converted to constexpr, and offers the option ...
Announcing Template IntelliSense
C++ developers using function templates and class templates can now take full advantage of IntelliSense within their template bodies. In Visual Studio 2017 15.8 Preview 3, when your caret is inside a template, a new UI element called a “Template Bar” appears next to the template definition. The Template Bar allows you to provide sample template arguments for IntelliSense. For example, let’s look in the Boost library at the function template is_partitioned_until inside of algorithm.hpp (which I slightly modified for this demo). We can use the Template Bar to give IntelliSense an example of the InputIterator type...
Visual Studio Code C/C++ extension June 2018 Update
Visual Studio Code C/C++ extension June 2018 Update Today we’re very happy to announce the availability of the June 2018 update to the C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code! In this update, we are continuing our efforts to make IntelliSense configuration easier by auto-detecting compile_commands.json files for IntelliSense, significantly improving recursive search performance, making browse.path optional, and adding “compilerPath” support for MSVC. IntelliSense auto-detects compile_commands.json In this update, compile_commands.json files in the workspace will be detected to auto-configure IntelliSense, eliminat...
Spring 2018 Visual C++ Migration Survey
The Spring 2018 Visual C++ Migration Survey is now open. Please take a few minutes to share your experiences, positive or not so positive. If you have not migrated your solutions and project to Visual Studio 2017, please let us know why. This survey is a way for us to better understand your migration issues , your needs and provide the features you need. Share your candid feedback now! Thank you.
Use Boost.Hana via vcpkg with the latest MSVC compiler
![Ulzii Luvsanbat [MSFT]](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/letter-avatar/d5e94907260423d9fadf64778bae09b1.svg){kind=avatar}
Overview As we continue to work towards improving the conformance of the MSVC compiler for the C++ community, we would like to enable more C++ libraries, and today we are bringing Boost.Hana to Visual C++. Building on our recent C++ conformance progress, customers can now use Boost.Hana with the VS2017 15.7 update after we've applied some source workarounds in the vcpkg version. We want to thank the author of Boost.Hana, Louis Dionne, for working with us on this effort and for extending his support. How do I get it? Background You may have seen our VCBlog post about C++ conformance completion ...
Visual Studio Code C/C++ extension May 2018 Update – IntelliSense configuration just got so much easier!
Visual Studio Code C/C++ extension May 2018 Update – IntelliSense configuration just got so much easier! This morning we shipped the May 2018 update of the C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code, the most significant update to this extension in its 2-year history! 😊 The team has been working extremely hard for the past month to bring many new features into this release. We are super excited about it and hope you would like it too! In this update, we primarily focused on drastically reducing the amount of configuration you have do to gain a great IntelliSense experience, and also added a few other features to boo...
Macro Expansions in Quick Info Tooltips
With Visual Studio, we're always looking for ways to save developers time and make them more productive. A good way to do this is to look at C/C++ language features that are difficult to work with, and make it easier to understand them. Today, we're looking at macros. Macros are always a pain to deal with, yet they are one of those things that never seem to go away in C++. To make it easier to understand what a particular macro is doing, we are introducing a new feature: macro expansions in Quick Info tooltips. If you are already using Visual Studio, you may already know that you can hover over a code symbol (suc...