Visual Studio incorrectly marking inactive code blocks when using `#ifdef`

Question

My project has a bunch of #ifdefs. The macros used by these #ifdefs are usually passed through the command line using the '/D' option to get different build configurations. Visual studio incorrectly assumes that these macros are not defined and greys out the code blocks present inside these #ifdefs. The problem is not syntax highlighting - I can turn the grayed out code to colored code from Options; the main issue is that I am not able to go to the function definition of any functions present inside that #ifdef. I tried reading about Visual Studio hint files but that didn't work for me.

Can anyone help me with this issue? I am using Visual Studio 2008.

Answer 1

Did you define several kinds of builds within VS as Configurations like Debug, Release, or are you building with makefiles? If you haven't taught VS about your /D options then I guess it can't help you. But you should be able to set up Preprocessor Definitions under project properties (Configuration Properties, C/C++, Preprocessor) to get the effect you want, right?

For each option /DMACRO=XXX that you pass to the compiler, specify MACRO=XXX in the IntelliSense Preprocessor Definitions. For each option /DMACRO (no value) that you pass to the compiler, specify MACRO in the IntelliSense preprocessor definitions.