Integrate MinGW with Visual Studio 2010 (Makefile Project)

Question

I'm trying to get MinGW (Version 4.7.2) working with Visual Studio 2010 to use some of the new C++11 features (sadly I'm still on WindowsXP and can't use Visual Studio 2012). To get started, I created a project with: File -> New Project -> Visual C++ -> General -> Makefile-Project

General:
Build Command Line: mingw32-make.exe
Rebuild All Command Line: mingw32-make.exe rebuild all
Clean Command Line: mingw32-make.exe clean all

IntelliSense:
Include Search Path: C:\MinGW\lib\gcc\mingw32\4.7.2\include\c++;C:\MinGW\include;
Assembly Search Path: C:\MinGW\lib\gcc\mingw32\4.7.2;C:\MinGW\lib;
Additional Arguments: -std=c++11

And I created an makefile with the content:

all:
    g++ -std=c++11 -pthread -o Makefile_Test.exe main.cpp

It compiles just fine, but almost everything is wavy red underlined in Visual Studios editor. i.e.

std::vector<std::thread> threads;

std::vector -> 'Error: namespace std has no member vector'

std::thread -> 'Error: namespace std has no member thread'

even std::cout << "";

std::cout -> 'Error: namespace std has no member cout'

But I included the correspondending headers of course: and Visual Studio can even find them (place the cursor at #include -> Ctrl+Shift+G opens the header). My MinGw folder looks like the following:

+ MinGW
|- bin
|- doc
|- include
|+ lib
 |- gettext
 |+ gcc
  |+ mingw32
   |+ 4.7.2
    |- debug
    |+ include
     |- c++
     |...
    |- include-fixed
    |- install-tools
|- libexec
|- mingw32
|- msys
|- share
|- var

I also tried to delete the sdf file a few times and let Visual Studio rebuild it from scratch - but all these errors appeared again.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I'm afraid you will have to give up your attempts to make those red squiggles disappear unless you disable them completely (so that, for instance, not even calls to non-existing functions will be marked).

The reason is that Visual Studio's Intellisense uses a separate front-end to EDG's C++ compiler to parse your program and possibly put a red squiggle under invalid statements or expressions, and the version used by Intellisense in VS2010 is (apparently) not fully compliant with C++11.

Therefore, switching to GCC 4.7.2 as the compiler will help building your C++11 programs, but won't affect the behavior of Intellisense.

If you want to disable the red squiggles completely, you can do it by selecting Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Advanced, and setting "Disable Squiggles" to "True".

Answer 2

Using the Makefile project template like OP described. I have been able to get VC 2013 & 2015 Community edition's intellisense working, by adding the proper include dirs to the projects properties.

1. Open the Project menu
2. Select {Project Name} Properties
3. Open the Configuration Properties
4. select VC++ Directories in the tree menu
5. Add Directories to the Includes Directories section

You do have to add the directories that contain the items you want read into intellisense. Say I am working on a gtkmm project, I'd also include the glibmm dir so the Glib::ustrings didn't get squiggles. Even if glibmm.h is not directly included in my source files.