Use cl as global compiler

This tutorial records the process to configure global C/C++ development environment base on cl.exe compiler provided by Build Tools for Visual Studio.

Motivation

Visual Studio is a powerful but cumbersome IDE, for which it is lack of attraction personally. One solution is to use only the Build Tools for Visual Studio which provide complete development experience (compiler, build system, libs, head files, etc.) on Windows independently.

Tutorial

Please follow the instructions below to configure the development environment properly.

Install Build Tools for Visual Studio

Download and launch Build Tools for Visual Studio <year>（中文：Visual Studio <年份> 生成工具）. Select and install the following two components.

Set environment variables

Although not recommend by the official document Use the Microsoft C++ toolset from the command line | Microsoft Docs,

We don't recommend you set these variables in the Windows environment yourself.

we have to set a batch of environment variables manually in order to use compiler, build system, libs, head files, etc. globally. In the same section of the official document, it says

The MSVC command-line tools use the PATH, TMP, INCLUDE, LIB, and LIBPATH environment variables, and also use other environment variables specific to your installed tools, platforms, and SDKs.

In practice, although I ignored the setting of env variable TMP, everything works safe and sound so far. Find and start x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022 (or any other command prompt you want to use) in your start menu. Run

set

This command prints all environment variables would be used by the build tools. Find the entry of INCLUDE (! not INCLUD), LIB, and LIBPATH. And set them to system environment variable manually. For example, I got the following INCLUDE entry

INCLUDE=d:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.33.31629\include;d:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.22621.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\cppwinrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um;d:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.33.31629\include;d:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.22621.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.22621.0\\cppwinrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um

Copy and paste variable name & value relatively to create an environment variable.

Repeat the process to create env variables for LIB and LIBPATH. As for PATH, command set prints complete but tedious directories, which is unnecessary for me. So I add directories of MSBuild.exe, cl.exe and rc.exe to system Path manually. In my case, they are

D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin # MSBuild.exe
D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.33.31629\bin\Hostx64\x64 # cl.exe
D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Shared\NuGetPackages\microsoft.windows.sdk.buildtools\10.0.22621.1\bin\10.0.22621.0\x64 # rc.exe

Save the changes and open a new terminal (powershell, cmd, etc.).

$ MSBuild.exe  --version
MSBuild version 17.3.0+f67e3d35e for .NET Framework
17.3.0.37102

$ cl.exe
用于 x64 的 Microsoft (R) C/C++ 优化编译器 19.33.31629 版
版权所有(C) Microsoft Corporation。保留所有权利。

用法: cl [ 选项... ] 文件名... [ /link 链接选项... ]

$ rc.exe /?

Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Resource Compiler Version 10.0.10011.16384
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Usage:  rc [options] .RC input file
<rest outputs>

You are now all set to call these tools world-wide.

Test

Install cmake and make sure it can be called from command line.

$ cmake --version
cmake version 3.23.2

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

Enter the directory of the simple test program.

cd hello

Here are two files -- helloworld.cpp with the following code

#include <iostream>

int main() {
  std::cout << "Hello World!" << std::endl;
  return 0;
}

and corresponding CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)

project(hello)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 20) 

add_executable(hello helloworld.cpp)

target_link_libraries(hello)

There are many choices of build systems. This tutorial takes MSBuild and ninja for examples.

MSBuild

Create a folder for build files.

mkdir msbuild;cd msbuild

Generate build files using cmake. The path .. points to where CMakeLists.txt is.

cmake .. -G"Visual Studio 17 2022"

If you don't know what are available Generator values of -G, run

$ cmake -G
CMake Error: No generator specified for -G

Generators
* Visual Studio 17 2022        = Generates Visual Studio 2022 project files.
                                 Use -A option to specify architecture.
  Visual Studio 16 2019        = Generates Visual Studio 2019 project files.
                                 Use -A option to specify architecture.
  Visual Studio 15 2017 [arch] = Generates Visual Studio 2017 project files.
                                 Optional [arch] can be "Win64" or "ARM".
  Visual Studio 14 2015 [arch] = Generates Visual Studio 2015 project files.
                                 Optional [arch] can be "Win64" or "ARM".
  Visual Studio 12 2013 [arch] = Generates Visual Studio 2013 project files.
                                 Optional [arch] can be "Win64" or "ARM".
  Visual Studio 11 2012 [arch] = Generates Visual Studio 2012 project files.
                                 Optional [arch] can be "Win64" or "ARM".
  Visual Studio 10 2010 [arch] = Deprecated.  Generates Visual Studio 2010
                                 project files.  Optional [arch] can be
                                 "Win64" or "IA64".
  Visual Studio 9 2008 [arch]  = Generates Visual Studio 2008 project files.
                                 Optional [arch] can be "Win64" or "IA64".
  Borland Makefiles            = Generates Borland makefiles.
  NMake Makefiles              = Generates NMake makefiles.
  NMake Makefiles JOM          = Generates JOM makefiles.
  MSYS Makefiles               = Generates MSYS makefiles.
  MinGW Makefiles              = Generates a make file for use with
                                 mingw32-make.
  Green Hills MULTI            = Generates Green Hills MULTI files
                                 (experimental, work-in-progress).
  Unix Makefiles               = Generates standard UNIX makefiles.
  Ninja                        = Generates build.ninja files.
  Ninja Multi-Config           = Generates build-<Config>.ninja files.
  Watcom WMake                 = Generates Watcom WMake makefiles.
  CodeBlocks - MinGW Makefiles = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - NMake Makefiles = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - NMake Makefiles JOM
                               = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - Ninja           = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeBlocks - Unix Makefiles  = Generates CodeBlocks project files.
  CodeLite - MinGW Makefiles   = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - NMake Makefiles   = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - Ninja             = Generates CodeLite project files.
  CodeLite - Unix Makefiles    = Generates CodeLite project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - NMake Makefiles
                               = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - MinGW Makefiles
                               = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Ninja         = Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles= Generates Eclipse CDT 4.0 project files.
  Kate - MinGW Makefiles       = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - NMake Makefiles       = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - Ninja                 = Generates Kate project files.
  Kate - Unix Makefiles        = Generates Kate project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - MinGW Makefiles
                               = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - NMake Makefiles
                               = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Ninja       = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.
  Sublime Text 2 - Unix Makefiles
                               = Generates Sublime Text 2 project files.

Now build

MSBuild.exe -m .\ALL_BUILD.vcxproj

For -m, see Building Multiple Projects in Parallel with MSBuild - MSBuild | Microsoft Docs.

Run the executable program.

$ .\Debug\hello.exe
Hello World!

Ninja

Assume that you have install ninja properly.

$ ninja --version
1.11.0

Create a folder for build files.

mkdir ninjabuild;cd ninjabuild

Set the generator to ninja

cmake .. -GNinja

Build

ninja

Run the executable program.

$ ./hello.exe
Hello World!