Finding out-of-date or missing dependencies or output files in a Visual C++ solution (or: Why does VS insist on rebuilding projects without changes?)

Question

I've got a solution containing multiple projects. I'm only changing the code in one of them, but every time I hit Ctrl+Shift+B, Visual Studio rebuilds all of the others.

I want it to build the other projects, so this is good. What's not good is that, normally, it would see that there was nothing to do. I have a wonky dependency somewhere, so this isn't working.

Is there a tool or macro (or switch) that'll explore the dependency tree and tell me which files are missing or out-of-date, so that I can get it to stop?

I know that I can solve this specific case, by (e.g.) touching all of the project files.

Unfortunately, I've often seen this situation when a file is configured to produce an output file (e.g. an IDL file is configured to output a typelibrary, but doesn't contain a 'library' block, so it'll never create a TLB).

This wouldn't be resolved by touching all of the project files, so I'm looking for something more general to add to my personal toolbox that'll easily tell me why a file is being rebuilt, whether it be because it's older than a dependency, or because the project is misconfigured to expect an output file that will never be produced.

Answer 1

In Options / Projects and Solutions / Build and Run turn up the MSBuild project build output verbosity to Detailed. It should give you an idea of why it is rebuilding all the projects.