Hello,

I have a sketch that builds fine with the Arduino 1.6.1 IDE. I am trying to use the Visual Micro plugin to allow me to turn this into a more complex project that supports a number of .h and .cpp files so that I can break the code into components. Just for context, I am very comfortable with C and C++, IDEs and command-line tools; if I need to migrate entirely to a command-line build I will do that. My hope for now was to be able to continue to use an .ino file for the top layer and link with the rest of the code contained in .cpp/.h files.

Right off the bat I am having trouble. The Arduino sketch has an include file right alongside the .ino file in the sketch directory. When I create a Visual Studio 2013 solution & project, though, this include file can't be found from the .ino file.

If I examine the project Property Pages for the currently active configuration (Debug), I can see the Include Directories. Initially it contains only $(VC_IncludePath);$(WindowsSDK_IncludePath); which are inherited values.

I added $(ProjectDir) and expected that this would fix the problem, since the file I am including is alongside the project file as well. I am accustomed to having to specify paths for include files and libraries, either in an IDE or Makefile.

However, this doesn't work.

It occurs to me that maybe these standard Visual Studio project property pages don't play a part in the building up the include paths that are passed to the AVR GCC. In the project properties pane under Extra Flags - Project I place -I "C:\..." (the full path to the directory containing the project file, .ino file, and .h file), but this does not work either.

There must be a way to do this. I am going to want to build .cpp files with headers in multiple directories, with relative paths if possible. Where would I specify those paths?

Thanks,

Paul R. Potts

Tim@Visual Micro wrote on Mar 27^th, 2015 at 3:33pm:


I used the plugin to create a new sketch project.

I will delete everything but the .ino file and the .h file and try again:

1. launch Visual Studio 2013
2. File/Open/Sketch Project
3. Select the .ino file
4. A solution is created
5. Select the project (under the solution), choose build
6. Output is "Compiling 'project' for 'Arduino Yun', project.ino:2:27: fatal error: header.h: No such file or directory

Hmmm... I just realized that I should try #include "header.h" instead of <header.h> and that built. So that is working -- looks like it was my fault.

Still, can you tell me -- is there a way to add include paths to the command line passed to the compiler? Because I will need to specify additional paths somehow.

Thanks,

Paul

You mean I can't add arbitrary C++ files to the project?

If I add a sketch library (a folder with a .cpp and .h file in it) the project somehow now makes reference to the .cpp file, and so it will be included in the build. But it does not show up in the project's list of source files. So how can I see what I am doing? For example, to remove the sketch library? I am willing to place my code in progress into sketch library folders but if I don't have any fine-grained control over what files are built, that is going to make things very difficult to work with as I develop and refactor the code in those libraries.

Ah! OK. It looks like that is enough to get me going. It sounds like a possible workflow then is to add .cpp files that are alongside the .ino file, then once I am satisfied that they work, migrate them into Sketch library folders.

I'm basically trying to do a sort of compromise between using the Arduino IDE that does not give me enough control and does to much behind the scenes for me, and using a straight-up AVR project in Atmel Studio. So if this will let me do that, and still use Visual Studio 2013, it's all good. Thanks!

The latest release of Visual Micro allows the Arduino rules to be broken. Code can be in sub folders, the files linked into the solution will be compiled. There is a new "Compatibility" section in Tools>Options which enables the various new features to be disabled if Strict Arduino compatibility is required.

Arduino library sources can also be copied to a designated folder structure below each project. The library sources are compiled and #included in the exact same way as normal Arduino libraries. This means that libraries can be developed and then published/copied to the master Arduino library list and shared within other projects. A new "Add>New Arduino Library" menu item provides a quick way to create a new library but they can also be created manually.