Two Choices for Precompiling Code
The latest version of this topic can be found at Two Choices for Precompiling Code.
With Visual C++, you can precompile any C or C++ code; you are not limited to precompiling only header files.
Precompiling requires planning, but it offers significantly faster compilations if you precompile source code other than simple header files.
Precompile code when you know that your source files use common sets of header files but don't include them in the same order, or when you want to include source code in your precompilation.
The precompiled-header options are /Yc (Create Precompiled Header File) and /Yu (Use Precompiled Header File). Use /Yc to create a precompiled header. When used with the optional hdrstop pragma, /Yc lets you precompile both header files and source code. Select /Yu to use an existing precompiled header in the existing compilation. You can also use /Fp with the /Yc and /Yu options to provide an alternative name for the precompiled header.
The compiler option reference topics for /Yu and /Yc discuss how to access this functionality in the development environment.
More Information
For further examples using precompiled headers, see the makefiles used to build the sample programs that ship with the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.