Caution

This page documents the latest, unreleased version of Buildbot. For documentation for released versions, see https://docs.buildbot.net/current/.

2.5.12.24. Visual C++

These steps are meant to handle compilation using Microsoft compilers. VC++ 6-141 (aka Visual Studio 2003-2015 and VCExpress9) are supported via calling devenv. Msbuild as well as Windows Driver Kit 8 are supported via the MsBuild4, MsBuild12, MsBuild14 and MsBuild141 steps. These steps will take care of setting up a clean compilation environment, parsing the generated output in real time, and delivering as detailed as possible information about the compilation executed.

All of the classes are in buildbot.steps.vstudio. The available classes are:

VC6
VC7
VC8
VC9
VC10
VC11
VC12
VC14
VC141
VS2003
VS2005
VS2008
VS2010
VS2012
VS2013
VS2015
VS2017
VS2019
VS2022
VCExpress9
MsBuild4
MsBuild12
MsBuild14
MsBuild141
MsBuild15
MsBuild16
MsBuild17

The available constructor arguments are

mode: The mode default to rebuild, which means that first all the remaining object files will be cleaned by the compiler. The alternate values are build, where only the updated files will be recompiled, and clean, where the current build files are removed and no compilation occurs.
projectfile: This is a mandatory argument which specifies the project file to be used during the compilation.
config: This argument defaults to release an gives to the compiler the configuration to use.
installdir: This is the place where the compiler is installed. The default value is compiler specific and is the default place where the compiler is installed.
useenv: This boolean parameter, defaulting to False instruct the compiler to use its own settings or the one defined through the environment variables PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB. If any of the INCLUDE or LIB parameter is defined, this parameter automatically switches to True.
PATH: This is a list of path to be added to the PATH environment variable. The default value is the one defined in the compiler options.
INCLUDE: This is a list of path where the compiler will first look for include files. Then comes the default paths defined in the compiler options.
LIB: This is a list of path where the compiler will first look for libraries. Then comes the default path defined in the compiler options.
arch: That one is only available with the class VS2005 (VC8). It gives the target architecture of the built artifact. It defaults to x86 and does not apply to MsBuild4 or MsBuild12. Please see platform below.
project: This gives the specific project to build from within a workspace. It defaults to building all projects. This is useful for building cmake generate projects.
platform: This is a mandatory argument for MsBuild4 and MsBuild12 specifying the target platform such as ‘Win32’, ‘x64’ or ‘Vista Debug’. The last one is an example of driver targets that appear once Windows Driver Kit 8 is installed.
defines: That one is only available with the MsBuild family of classes. It allows to define pre-processor constants used by the compiler.

Here is an example on how to drive compilation with Visual Studio 2013:

from buildbot.plugins import steps

f.addStep(
    steps.VS2013(projectfile="project.sln", config="release",
        arch="x64", mode="build",
           INCLUDE=[r'C:\3rd-party\libmagic\include'],
           LIB=[r'C:\3rd-party\libmagic\lib-x64']))

Here is a similar example using “MsBuild12”:

from buildbot.plugins import steps

# Build one project in Release mode for Win32
f.addStep(
    steps.MsBuild12(projectfile="trunk.sln", config="Release", platform="Win32",
            workdir="trunk",
            project="tools\\protoc"))

# Build the entire solution in Debug mode for x64
f.addStep(
    steps.MsBuild12(projectfile="trunk.sln", config='Debug', platform='x64',
            workdir="trunk"))