premake / premake/premake-core

Can't create a precompiled header for Visual Studio 2019

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support-request
Dominant language
C
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Description

What are you trying to do?
I'm trying to create a precompiled header for Visual Studio 2019.

What problem are you having?
My pchheader is set correctly but my pchsource is not. When I right click on the pch source file and go to Properties > Configuration Properties > C/C++ > Precompiled Headers, my source file is set to Use (/Yu) instead of Create (Yc).

What have you tried so far?
I made minimal example to replicate my issue. My project structure is like so:

MyProject/
    src/
        main.cpp
        pch.cpp
        pch.h
PremakeConfig/
    main.lua
premake.5.exe

My premake config is as follows:

workspace "MyWorkspace"
    location ".."
    startproject "MyProject"

    configurations { "Debug", "Release" }

OutputDir = "%{cfg.buildcfg}"
TargetDir = "%{wks.location}/bin/%{OutputDir}"
ObjDir = "%{wks.location}/bin-int/%{OutputDir}"

project "MyProject"
    kind "ConsoleApp"
    location "%{wks.location}/%{prj.name}"
    language "C++"

    targetdir "%{TargetDir}/%{prj.name}"
    objdir "%{ObjDir}/%{prj.name}"

    pchheader "pch.h"
    pchsource "%{prj.location}/src/pch.cpp"

    files {
        "%{prj.location}/src/**.h",
        "%{prj.location}/src/**.cpp"
    }

    includedirs "%{prj.location}/src"

I ran the command .\premake5.exe --file="PremakeConfig\main.lua" vs2019.

Explicitly adding every file in files like so:

files {
    "%{prj.location}/src/pch.h",
    "%{prj.location}/src/pch.cpp",
    "%{prj.location}/src/main.cpp"
}

solves the problem. The problem is that the real project I'm working on has a lot of files and I don't wan't to list them all in my config and have to change it every time I add a new file.

Is this a bug or is there something I'm not understanding about precompiled headers?

What version of Premake are you using?
premake5 (Premake Build Script Generator) 5.0.0-alpha15

Thanks in advance.

Clément

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with PremakeConfig/main.lua and reproduce the issue using the supplied vs2019 command and project layout containing src/pch.cpp and src/pch.h. Inspect how the Visual Studio 2019 generator handles wildcard files and pchsource; the work is done when the generated project marks pch.cpp as Create (Yc) without listing every source file explicitly.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp, lua
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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