Management of many projects

[viordash]

I am using VisualGDB in a large project, more than 30 projects in a one solution.
The projects are mainly Linux cross-compile, using gnu make for building.
Do you have any suggestions on how to make it easier to manage the settings of many similar projects?
For example setting common CGLAGS / CXXFLAGS, Include path, Preprocessor macros, etc.
In the current version, changing the settings takes a long time
Thanx

[support]

Hi,

Yes, please consider using MSBuild property sheets or Advanced CMake projects with multiple targets.

[viordash]

For some reason we will have to stay on gnu make. And it would be nice if you add projects management

[support]

Thanks for the clarification. You can achieve the same effect with GNU Make by manually managing and including .mak files, however this will require learning advanced GNU Make syntax and the VisualGDB GUI will not show the settings added via custom .mak files, and these settings will not automatically affect IntelliSense (although they will be used for building).

Generally, we do not advise using GNU Make-based projects, as the newer MSBuild and CMake project types provide much better integration with the GUI and successfully address many shortcomings of GNU Make.

[viordash]

Could you show by example how to include a new .mak file? Can’t seem to change the auto-generated Makefile and debug.mak?

[support]

Please note that we are not able to provide any help with learning the GNU Make syntax, or other low-level tools. Our support is strictly limited to issues in VisualGDB itself. If you prefer a solution that works out-of-the-box, please consider switching to MSBuild or CMake that are specifically designed to handle this better.

[viordash]

I’ll figure out the syntax of the makefile, but I don’t know how to call the new makefile, assuming the auto-generated makefile cannot be modified.

Just need to be aware that in our production version, the build is run on a Linux machine using jenkins or gitlab-ci and therefore only makefiles are available, not any custom Visual Studio build steps.

[support]

Please refer to our Makefile documentation. It explains this topic in detail.

[viordash]

<span class=”tlid-translation translation” lang=”en”><span class=”” title=””>Could you tell me how can I execute the new extra .mak file? I did not see this information in the specified link. </span></span>

<span class=”tlid-translation translation” lang=”en”><span class=”” title=””>Or do I need to remove the <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>#VisualGDB: AutoSourceFiles</span> line and write the commands manually in the existing makefiles?</span></span>

[viordash]

Could you tell me how can I execute the new extra .mak file? I did not see this information in the specified link. Or do I need to remove the #VisualGDB: AutoSourceFiles line and write the commands manually in the existing makefiles?

[support]

There are no special steps required on the VisualGDB side to handle included Makefiles. We would advise the following steps to get it working:

1. Make sure you can build the original Makefile outside VisualGDB by launching GNU Make manually as described here.
2. Restructure the Makefile according to your requirements and make sure it still builds. Please note that we are not able to provide any help on this step.
3. If the restructured Makefile works outside VisualGDB, but doesn’t work with VisualGDB, we can help you configure VisualGDB to replicate the stand-alone build results.

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