Visual C Plus Plus
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Visual C++ (also known as MSVC) is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) product for the C and C++ programming languages engineered by Microsoft. It has tools for developing and debugging C++ code, especially that written for the Microsoft Windows API, the DirectX API, and the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Visual C++ boasts advanced features such as syntax highlighting, IntelliSense (a coding autocompletion feature) and advanced debugging functionality. For example, it allows for remote debugging using a separate computer and allows debugging by stepping through code a line at a time. The "edit and continue" functionality allows changing the source code and rebuilding the program during program debugging, without restarting the debugged program.
The compile and build system feature, precompiled header files, "minimal rebuild" functionality and incremental link: these features significantly shorten turn-around time to edit, compile and link the program, especially for large software projects.
Editions
There are three versions of Visual C++ available:
- Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard
- Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional
- Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 Toolkit
The Professional version contains the full feature set, but is only available as a component of Visual Studio .NET. The Standard edition is available as a stand-alone product but is missing some features, most notably the optimising compiler.
The Toolkit consists only of the command line based compiler, without the IDE and other components (Notably the Platform SDK, although it is available as a separate download).
Standard edition users can produce better executables (both in speed and size) by using the compiler from the Toolkit. This can be achieved simply by overwriting the "bin" (binary) directory with the matching files from the Toolkit. See links for more details.
External links
- Microsoft's Visual C++ Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/)
- Microsoft's Visual C++ Developer Center Community (http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/community/)
- The Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 download (http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/)
- Integrating Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 compiler and linker with Visual C++ .NET Standard (http://www.sawtoothdistortion.com/Articles/FreeOptimizingCompiler.html)de:Microsoft Visual C-Plusplus
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