[cfe-dev] compile_commands.json for Windows/MSVC

[Kim Gräsman]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Chandler Carruth <chandlerc at google.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 1:57 AM, Kim Gräsman <kim.grasman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'd prefer to parse the VS project files and spit out a compilation
>> database. They are plain XML and as of VS2010 (I think) supposed to be
>> backward compatible, so it's a stable format.
>
> My problem with this is that it adds an extra step every time the project
> file changes. If you forget it, your tool begins to misbehave in potentially
> surprising ways.
>
> Maybe you could make the logic involve parsing and spitting out, but
> embedding it into a plugin that gets notified when VS sees the project file
> change? (I clearly have no idea how this stuff works...)

I see your concern. Yeah, it could probably be driven from a plug-in
of some kind, I don't know the details either. It thought it was messy
when I looked at it last a few years ago :-)

Isn't it just a dependency problem, though? If the modified time of
any vcxproj > the modified time of compile_commands.json it needs to
be regenerated? That way it would pick up changes that happen outside
of Visual Studio, e.g. a version control update, manual edit,
generated projects.

Actually, I started digging into Tooling yesterday, and maybe
compile_commands.json doesn't even need to be saved out. What if there
was code in Tooling to transform a Visual Studio solution into a
CompilationDatabase implementation? It would take longer to parse,
probably, but it should be a pretty direct translation.

- Kim