Last week I was configuring the build server to compile its first Visual C++ 2010 project. I took the approach of using MsBuild on the project file (.vcxproj) as I am already doing it with the .NET projects. This worked just fine on my development machine with Visual Studio 2010 installed. It soon turned out not to be as easy as I expected it to be. The build failed as follows:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(297,5): 
warning MSB8003: Could not find WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry. 
TargetFrameworkVersion or PlatformToolset may be set to an invalid version number.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Platforms\Win32\Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.Targets(57,5): 
error MSB6006: "CL.exe" exited with code -1073741515.

My first thought was that there were some files missing since there was no Visual Studio installed on the build machine. Running the build command in a regular command prompt resulted in the same error after an additional message box popped up:

This was to be expected. Even on my development machine it is necessary to start the build from the Visual Studio Command Prompt for it to work. Its replacement on the build machine is Windows SDK 7.1 Command Prompt, part of Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4. From this command prompt the build worked flawlessly on the build machine as well. It seems we’re getting closer to the source of the problem… The command prompt is initialized by first calling SetEnv.cmd from the Windows SDK installation (by default in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin) to set the required environment variables. By doing the same in the build script before calling MsBuild should do the trick for the continuous integration server as well.

Well, here lied the real problem. To simplify CruiseControl.net project configuration the build scripts are written in NAnt. Calling a batch script from NAnt is not a problem of course, there is the exec task for doing that, but any changes to the environment variables are preserved only for the duration of this task. This means we haven’t achieved anything by calling SetEnv.cmd before the msbuild task since any changes made by it are lost. The only way to make this work is by creating another batch script which calls both SetEnv.cmd and MSBuild immediately after it:

call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\bin\Setenv.cmd" /Release /x86
msbuild myproj.vcxproj /verbosity:minimal

It’s not ideal but it’s the only way I could make it work. Fortunately this batch script shouldn’t be changing much since everything else is configured inside the project file. I’d still prefer a solution which would allow calling MsBuild directly from NAnt though.

By switching from C# with P/Invoke calls to Managed C++ when implementing a managed wrapper for the ANSI C style library I stumbled upon, I wanted to avoid the tedious and error-prone task of writing the P/Invoke signatures for function calls and user-defined types for the structures they used. As a side result I also managed to avoid most of the advanced marshalling issues with complex data structures.

With simple value types not needing any explicit marshalling only strings need special attention since char* and System::String can’t be implicitly converted between. The Marshal class implements the methods necessary for doing this as demonstrated in the following snippet:

String^ MCPP::Together(String^ first, String^ second)
{
   // marshal managed strings to unamanged memory
   IntPtr firstPtr = Marshal::StringToHGlobalAnsi(first);
   IntPtr secondPtr = Marshal::StringToHGlobalAnsi(second);

   // cast unmanaged buffer to a characer array
   char* firstNative = static_cast<char*>(firstPtr.ToPointer());
   char* secondNative = static_cast<char*>(secondPtr.ToPointer());

   // perform some unmanaged calls
   int bufferSize = strlen(firstNative) + strlen(secondNative) + 4;
   char* resultBuffer = new char[bufferSize];
   sprintf_s(resultBuffer, bufferSize, "%s + %s", firstNative, secondNative);
  
   // marshal unmanaged character array to managed string
   String^ result = Marshal::PtrToStringAnsi(static_cast<IntPtr>(resultBuffer));
  
   // free all unmanaged buffers
   delete[] resultBuffer;
   Marshal::FreeHGlobal(firstPtr);
   Marshal::FreeHGlobal(secondPtr);
  
   // return managed string
   return result;
}

It should be noted that it wouldn’t make any sense switching to unmanaged code to do some string operations only as shown above. This is for demonstration purposes only and you would usually call some unmanaged libraries or the like instead of it. But it is a nice demonstration how cumbersome string operations were in C. If you were doing this once, the sprintf_s function call might have caught your attention. It’s a safe implementation of sprintf which prevents buffer overflows.

Another point worth mentioning is that you have to take care of allocated memory for the conversion since your character array is now allocated on the unmanaged heap. Make sure you use the FreeHGlobal method to do it, not the free (used for freeing memory allocated by *alloc calls – ANSI C style) or delete (used for freeing memory allocated by new calls – C++ style) functions.

To reduce the code overhead of string conversions between managed and unmanaged world you might consider wrapping it into a helper class. This should also help preventing unwanted memory leaks during the conversions.

Less than a month ago I was certain I’d never have to write managed code in C++. With such a set of mind I didn’t really care about the new features being added and improvements being made to managed C++ since the first Visual Studio .NET. Luckily there were people thinking otherwise and as a result this – often overlooked – member of the .NET family got better with every release and is actually quite nice in the 2005 version. Don’t get me wrong – it still is C++ and you probably wouldn’t want to use it if you could get away with C# or VB. But if platform invoke is giving you too many headaches you might want to take a look at it. It could be the easiest way to solve your problem.

To make this a little bit easier for those of you who haven’t used C++ for some time and didn’t bother to check managed C++ at all, I’ll provide a small sample to help out with the beginner’s problems I had when starting out.

In a situation like mine you’ll usually want to write a class library to wrap the unmanaged calls for undisturbed use within you managed project. In my case I’ll be implementing an interface but writing a standalone class is not much different.

Let’s start with the header file. You might remember that C++ requires the separation of class declaration from method definition, the former being done in a header (*.h) file and the latter in a code (*.cpp) file. I admit being a little bit spoiled by not having to do that any more in C#. Let’s name our header MCPP.h (fell free to guess what it stands for):

using namespace System;

namespace DamirsCorner
{
   namespace Samples
   {
      namespace LateBinding
      {
         public ref class MCPP : IBind
         {
         public:
            virtual String^ Together(String^ first, String^ second);
         };
      }
   }
}

It looks like a hybrid between C++ and C# and one could argue that’s what it actually is. I’d like to point out the following:

• The using directive has an additional keyword namespace. Also a double colon (static separator in C++) would be used to separate nested namespaces instead of a dot. You’ll see this in the code file which follows.
• To put your own code into a nested namespace, you’ll have to actually nest the namespace declarations. Separating several of them with double colons won’t work.
• To declare a managed class, use the additional keyword ref.
• Don’t forget the different use of the public keyword for the members in C++ compared to C#.
• The ^ character denotes a reference to a managed object (stored on the managed heap), separating it from unmanaged pointers (* character).
• Notice the interface IBind being implemented by the class. A standalone class wouldn’t need this of course. The virtual keyword in the method declaration would also be skipped in this case.

This is it for the header file. Let’s look at the code file now:

#include "MCPP.h"

using namespace System;
using namespace DamirsCorner::Samples::LateBinding;

String^ MCPP::Together(String^ first, String^ second)
{
   return String::Empty;
}

It’s pretty obvious the method doesn’t really do anything but it’s the skeleton we’re focusing on at the moment. You should turn your attention to the following:

• The code file must include the header file it implements (i.e. defines its methods). To refresh your C++ knowledge: it’s a good habit to use quotes for internal project header files and pointy brackets for external library header files. The compiler looks in the project directory first for the former and in the include directories first for the latter. It checks the other location if it doesn’t find the file but it will work faster if you use the right one (not to mention that by doing it you’re avoiding the problem of locating the wrong include with the same name).
• You can notice the double colons as namespace separators as I mentioned before.
• The methods you’re implementing are not within the class declaration any more. You already declared the class in the header file therefore you only set the method class membership here by prefixing its name with the class name and a colon, just like you were calling a static method.

Trying to build a C++ project opened from a network share in Visual Studio 2005 might fail with a strange error: Command line error D8022 : cannot open '$(OutDir)\RSP00000115642624.rsp'. Double clicking it in the Error List window crashes the Visual Studio. The issue is reported in the MSDN Product Feedback Center.

Additional exploration and experimentation revealed that the problem only appears when the share host can’t authenticate the user reading from and writing to the share. This means there will be no error when the user and the share hosting computer are in the same domain. You can find a more thorough explanation in the following MSDN forum post.

Unfortunately this usually isn’t the case in the home environment. It’s best you just avoid the problem altogether by opening the project from a local drive. Just use a version control system or a synchronization tool to assure the same files are on the local machine and on the server when you need to.