How Do I Set Include Path Library Directory And Linker For VSCODE When I Have Visual C++ Build Tools To Work With (not g++)

Question

I have set up VS code as my development environment and used MSVC build tools (cl.exe compiler) instead of g++. I tried to set up SFML for my environment. I want to know how do I set the SFML include path and library path. And also, How do I perform static Linking with cl.exe. Note: I am using only VS code and NOT Visual Studio for programming. Below are some files I've used. Tasks.json,Launch.json, C_cpp_properties.json.

Tasks.json:

{
    "tasks": [
        {
            "type": "cppbuild",
            "label": "C/C++: cl.exe build active file",
            "command": "cl.exe",
            "args": [
                "/Zi",
                "/EHsc",
                "/nologo",
                "/Fe:",
                "${workspaceFolder}\\bin\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe",
                "${workspaceFolder}\\*.cpp"
            ],
            "options": {
                "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}"
            },
            "problemMatcher": [
                "$msCompile"
            ],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "detail": "Task generated by Debugger."
        }
    ],
    "version": "2.0.0"
}

Launch.json:

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "cl.exe - Build and debug active file",
            "type": "cppvsdbg",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}\\bin\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe",
            "args": [],
            "stopAtEntry": false,
            "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
            "environment": [],
            "console": "externalTerminal",
            "preLaunchTask": "C/C++: cl.exe build active file"
        }
    ]
}

c_cpp_properties.json

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Win32",
            "includePath": [
                "${default}"
            ],
            "defines": [
                "_DEBUG",
                "UNICODE",
                "_UNICODE"
            ],
            "windowsSdkVersion": "10.0.19041.0",
            "compilerPath": "C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/BuildTools/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.30.30705/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe",
            "cStandard": "c17",
            "cppStandard": "c++17",
            "intelliSenseMode": "windows-msvc-x64"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}

Answer 1

As mentioned in the comments, you need to use a C++ build system to manage dependencies and build your project. VSCode does not come with any built-in build systems like Visual Studio does.

VSCode tasks allow you to specify a command line, which can then be invoked easily in the IDE. The task shown is just a "build active file" task, which is only really useful for trivial programs with no dependencies. It invokes cl.exe on the current source file (and passes a few other arguments).

You can specify include directories and pass arguments to the linker by adding to the "args" array in the task, e.g.:

"/I", "D:\\Code Libraries\\boost_1_77_0",
"/link", "/LIBPATH:\"D:\\Code Libraries\\boost_1_77_0\\stage\\lib\"",

which assumes that the boost headers and (statically built) libraries are at the specified locations.

You could probably work out how to build an entire project by adding command lines with VSCode tasks, but it's probably easier to use a build system (even if that system is CMake).