Builds During Application Development
A solution and its individual projects are typically built and tested in a Debug build. Developers will compile a Debug build repeatedly, at each step in their development process. Debugging is a two-step process. First, compile-time errors are corrected. These errors can include incorrect syntax, misspelled keywords, and type mismatches. Next, the debugger is used to detect and correct such problems as logic errors and semantic errors that are detected at run-time.
When a project or solution is fully developed and sufficiently debugged, its components are compiled in a Release build. By default, a Release build employs various optimizations. Builds that are optimized are designed to be smaller and run faster than builds that have not been optimized.
Selecting and Editing Build Configurations
Use the Configuration Manager Dialog Box to define project configurations, which are sets of properties for each supported combination of build and platform (for example, Release Win32). You can create your own special builds, such as a QA build configuration for testers, or a personal build configuration to try out some preliminary code. You can then use the Project Designer to modify the settings for each combination of build and platform. For more information, see Introduction to the Project Designer.
Use the Solution Property Pages dialog box to define properties for your solution. The common properties include settings for the startup project and project dependencies. The configuration properties include drop-down menus listing kinds of project configurations and platforms available, and check boxes for selecting those projects to be built and (if enabled) to be deployed. The combination of project configuration and the platform chosen determines the project build configuration to be used. For more information, see Solution Property Pages Dialog Box.
Use the Solution Configurations drop-down list in the Standard toolbar to select the active solution build configuration, and to open the Configuration Manager dialog box. You also can access the Configuration Manager by selecting Configuration Manager from the Build menu.
Related Topics
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Description |
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Describes vshost.exe, which improves debugging performance, enables partial-trust debugging, and enables design-time expression evaluation. |
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Describes how to disable the hosting process when doing so is required. |
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Links to documents that show how to configure debug builds, release builds, and special builds for particular groups of internal and external users. |
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Links to documents that describe how to distribute a finished application or component to other users. |
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Describes build configurations, and shows how to create them and modify them. |
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Describes the options in the Configuration Manager dialog box. |
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Provides background information about Visual Studio projects. |
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Describes project properties and how some properties apply to particular builds. |
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Links to documents that explain how to build C and C++ projects. |
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Describes how to build on the command line, either directly or by creating a script or batch file. |