Screenshot - Snap.png

Introduction

This is a useful tool for building a serial project for your team when your software contains many components, created using VC++ 6.0, VC++ 2003, VC++ 2005, and also VC++ 2008. At the same time, you can create batch files to do some additional tasks, such as increasing the version of the project, copying/deleting files, and calculating the MD5 of the final output binary, etc.

You can compile them by selecting and then getting the compile status from the 'Status' icon, and even stop the build process while compiling. Of course, you have the option to view the run-time output of compiling.

Background

Recently, I had an opportunity to manage a project which had many VC++ projects. We had to compile them one by one first, and later we used a batch file to do this. But this was a long time to wait for the final result, and the control flow was poor: if one of the projects failed, we had to recompile them all. So, I searched the web and learnt that CodeJock and BCGSoft all have their GUI build wizard, and thought why not create a common one for us? So, here it is . ^)^

Using the Code

We use some common stuff in this tool, including the INI reader, the console redirector, and XListCtrl. All the initialization starts from:

CBuildWizDlg::OnInitDialog(): 

InitListCtrl(&m_List);
FillListCtrl(&m_List);

// Toggle the state of output
OnDetail();

// Center Main Dialog.
CenterWindow();
m_log.m_pWnd = this;

// Set the Header Control
m_HeaderCtrl.SetTitleText(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szPrjName);
m_HeaderCtrl.SetDescText(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szComments);

m_HeaderCtrl.SetIconHandle(AfxGetApp()->LoadIcon(IDI_MSDEV));
m_HeaderCtrl.Init(this);
m_HeaderCtrl.MoveCtrls(this);

// Init the Build Envirement.
InitBuildEnv();

Here is the details about our initialization of the List control:

// Create the Project List items from the BuildWiz.ini.
void CBuildWizDlg::FillListCtrl(CXListCtrl *pList)
{
    // Read Settings From INI
    m_objSet.InitSettings();

    //
    CString        strTitle;
    strTitle.Format("BuildWiz - script by %s ", 
                    m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szAuthor);
    SetWindowText(strTitle);

    pList->LockWindowUpdate();
    // ***** lock window updates while filling list *****
    
    pList->DeleteAllItems();
    
    CString                str = _T("");
    int                    nItem, nSubItem;
    STU_BWS_ITEM        bwsItem;

    for(nItem = 0; nItem < m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.nItems; nItem ++)
    {
        for (nSubItem = 0; nSubItem < BWS_COLS; nSubItem++)
        {
            str = _T("");
            bwsItem = m_objSet.m_arrBWItems.GetAt(nItem);

            // Text
            if (nSubItem == 0)                // Enable
                str.Format("%s", bwsItem.szComponent);
            else if (nSubItem == 1)                // Label
                str.Format("%s", bwsItem.szComments);
            else if (nSubItem == 2)                // Status
            {
                str = _T(" ");
                pList ->SetItemImage(nItem, nSubItem, BLDWIZ_STATUS_NA);
            }

            // Do it.
            if (nSubItem == 0)
            {
                pList->InsertItem(nItem, str);

                if(strnicmp(bwsItem.szStatus, "yes", 3) == 0)
                    pList->SetCheckbox(nItem, nSubItem, ITEM_STATUS_CHECKED);
                else if(strnicmp(bwsItem.szStatus, "no", 2) == 0)
                    pList->SetCheckbox(nItem, nSubItem, ITEM_STATUS_UNCHECKED);
                else
                    pList->SetCheckbox(nItem, nSubItem, ITEM_STATUS_HIDDEN);
            }
            else
                pList->SetItemText(nItem, nSubItem, str);

        }

    }
    
    pList->UnlockWindowUpdate();    // ***** unlock window updates *****
}

For building projects, we need some environment for the compilers, such as 'include', 'lib', 'path'; we do this in:

// Set the Env: 'include', 'lib', 'path'.
void CBuildWizDlg::InitBuildEnv()
{
    TCHAR        tszEnv[MAX_ENVVAR_LEN + 1] = {0};
    CString        strEnv;

    // Include
    if(strlen(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szIncDir) > 0)
    {
        GetEnvironmentVariable("INCLUDE", tszEnv, sizeof(tszEnv));
        strEnv.Format("%s;%s", m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szIncDir, tszEnv);
        SetEnvironmentVariable("INCLUDE", strEnv);
    }

    // Library 
    if(strlen(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szLibDir ) > 0)
    {
        GetEnvironmentVariable("LIB", tszEnv, sizeof(tszEnv));
        strEnv.Format("%s;%s", m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szLibDir, tszEnv);
        SetEnvironmentVariable("LIB", strEnv);
    }

    // Path 
    if(strlen(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szExeDir) > 0)
    {
        GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", tszEnv, sizeof(tszEnv));
        strEnv.Format("%s;%s", m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szExeDir, tszEnv);
        SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", strEnv);
    }

    // 'BWBaseDir' variable
    if(strlen(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szBaseDir) > 0)
    {
        SetEnvironmentVariable("BWBASEDIR", m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szBaseDir);
    }
    else
        SetEnvironmentVariable("BWBASEDIR", "");


    // Change the current directory.
    if(strlen(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szBaseDir) > 0)
    {
        if(!SetCurrentDirectory(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szBaseDir))
            OutputDebugString("\nError! Base Directory is invalid.");
        else
        {
            
        }
    }
}

For some reason, we have to use the 'redirect' technology for msdev.exe, .bat, .cmd; but, we have to use the 'pipeline' technology for VS2005's devenv.exe. You can see them in the 'CBuildWizDlg::OnBuild()' function:

// This is the Piper.
    CTraceCollector objTracer(&m_log);
    objTracer.Run();

    // Here we start build and create a redirected application.
    if(!RunScript(m_objSet.m_stuBWS_COMM.szPreCompile))
    {
     ... ...

How to Use this Tool

First, you should know something about BuildWiz.ini. There is a [common] section for the common settings of your project, and there are many [item?] sections for each of your projects in your product. What I am sure is, once you run BuildWiz.exe after reviewing the demo BuildWiz.ini, you should know the meanings of each tag.

Please download the binary first.

Points of Interest

BuildWiz supports VC++ 6.0 and VC++ 2005 projects, and MinGW, Cygin, C51, are also supported, I think.
We use both the pipeline and redirect technologies.
BuildWiz can be improved to support user defined environment variables.
As a project manager, you can make your software build more faster and easier than ever. :)
It gives you more control while building sources.

History

2008-05-16: Rev. 1.2. BuildWiz.ini now has the 'BaseDir={PWD}' support.
2008-01-23: Rev. 1.1. BuildWiz.ini now has the %basedir% variable support.

By using this new variable, we can simplify the .ini.

2007-10-08: First version. (This is my third article on CodeProject.)

Batch Build VC Projects Wizard