Building C/C++ projects

Introduction

AppVeyor provides several build worker images with Visual Studio.

Additionally, LLVM/Clang, MinGW and MinGW-w64 compiler infrastructures are also available.

Visual Studio

Build configured with standard Visual Studio projects does not require any extra steps to setup build environment.

Build configured with makefiles or any scripts directly invoking compiler executable require enabling the Visual C++ toolset for the command-line builds.

Run the following in the appveyor.yml:

Visual Studio 2022

  • For 32-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat"

  • For 64-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"

Visual Studio 2019

  • For 32-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat"

  • For 64-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"

Visual Studio 2017

  • For 32-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat"

  • For 64-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"

Visual Studio 2015

  • For 32-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86

  • For 64-bit target

      call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\SetEnv.cmd" /x64
  call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86_amd64

Now, Visual C++ tools (cl.exe, link.exe and others) should be available in the PATH and required variables for CL environment and LINK environment set properly for command-line builds.

PlatformToolset

Visual Studio project select a toolchain based on the <PlatformToolset /> element. To avoid potential problems project files should use the variable DefaultPlatformToolset as the value. Hardcoded values, like v100 (Visual Studio 2010) and v110 (Visual Studio 2012), can cause problems on some build worker images.

The PlatformToolset value should be set after Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props properties are imported. An example is shown below.

<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" />
<PropertyGroup Label="PlatformToolset">
  <PlatformToolset>$(DefaultPlatformToolset)</PlatformToolset>
</PropertyGroup>

If you are building with custom rules which may cause DefaultPlatformToolset to be undefined, then you can use the following to ensure PlatformToolset has a minimum value.

<!-- Use DefaultPlatformToolset after Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props -->
<Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" />

<!-- Set DefaultPlatformToolset to v100 (VS2010) if not defined -->
<PropertyGroup Label="EmptyDefaultPlatformToolset">
    <DefaultPlatformToolset Condition=" '$(DefaultPlatformToolset)' == '' ">v100</DefaultPlatformToolset>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Use DefaultPlatformToolset to set PlatformToolset -->
<PropertyGroup Label="PlatformToolset">
    <PlatformToolset>$(DefaultPlatformToolset)</PlatformToolset>
</PropertyGroup>

VC++ Packaging Tool

Vcpkg is a package manager that helps to acquire, build and install C/C++ open source dependencies for C/C++ projects built with Visual Studio 2017 or Visual Studio 2015 Update 3.

AppVeyor comes with VC++ Packaging Tool pre-installed in C:\tools\vcpkg folder (without integration installed by default).

In case newer (than current AppVeyor build worker image contains) VC++ Packaging Tool required, it can be installed on-the-fly during install stage. For that add the following to the YAML (or similar to UI Environment tab if you do not use YAML):

install:
- cd C:\Tools\vcpkg
- git pull
- .\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
- cd %APPVEYOR_BUILD_FOLDER%

For example, if a project built with CMake requires SQLite 3 library as a dependency:

  • Install required package for both target platforms
vcpkg install sqlite3:x86-windows
vcpkg install sqlite3:x64-windows
  • Enable user-wide integration for Visual Studio/MSBuild projects:
cd c:\tools\vcpkg
vcpkg integrate install
  • Enable integration for CMake (toolchain file):
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=c:/tools/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake ...

Cache installed packages

To enable faster (cached) rebuilds add the following to the cache section in the appveyor.yml:

cache:
- c:\tools\vcpkg\installed\

Read more about using Vcpkg in its documentation.

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