{"id":27658,"date":"2021-02-25T21:49:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T21:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cppblog\/?p=27658"},"modified":"2024-04-01T17:55:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:55:15","slug":"registries-bring-your-own-libraries-to-vcpkg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cppblog\/registries-bring-your-own-libraries-to-vcpkg\/","title":{"rendered":"Registries: Bring your own libraries to vcpkg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Special thanks to Nicole Mazzuca for providing the content of this blog post. <\/em><\/p>\n

Are you working on a C++ project with library dependencies? Are you tired of maintaining a custom-built package management workflow with duct tape and git submodules? Then you should consider trying out a package manager. Perhaps you have been side-eyeing vcpkg for a while, and it looks like the perfect solution for your team, but for one problem: not all your dependencies are open source! Your company has internal libraries that they expect everyone to use too.<\/p>\n

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Can vcpkg work with non-open-source dependencies?<\/h3>\n

Yes! Up until now, your best options included hacking up overlay ports or forking the vcpkg ports tree. But there was room for improvement. Now, we are happy to announce a feature with an experience to manage any libraries you want, whether they are internal-only, open source, your own forks of open source projects, and more. In this blog post, we will delve into registries<\/strong>, our new experimental feature. We would love for you to try this feature out, give us feedback, and help us make it the best feature it can be!<\/p>\n

Getting started with registries<\/h3>\n

So, we\u2019ve discussed the why of registries; now let\u2019s discuss the how. Let\u2019s say we are developers at North Wind Traders, and our company has a GitHub Enterprise subscription. Of course, depending on your company\u2019s or even your personal situation, you can use whatever solution you\u2019re already using. The goal in this blog post is to set up a git registry, the most common type of registry.<\/p>\n

1. Create a new registry<\/h4>\n

The company\u2019s GitHub organization is at https:\/\/github.com\/northwindtraders<\/a>, and that can be used to set up the registry. We will create our registry at https:\/\/github.com\/northwindtraders\/vcpkg-registry<\/a>, since that\u2019s as good a name as any, and you can follow along with the branches there.<\/p>\n

Once we\u2019ve created this registry, we\u2019ll have to do a few things to actually set it up to contain the packages we want, in this case our internal JSON and Unicode libraries.<\/p>\n