Ice Builder for MSBuild

Ice Builder for MSBuild provides support for compiling Slice source files (.ice files) in MSBuild projects. It compiles these Slice files using the Slice to C++ compiler (slice2cpp) or the Slice to C# compiler (slice2cs) provided by your Ice installation.

Ice Builder compiles or recompiles a Slice file when the corresponding generated files are missing or when they are out of date. Generated files are out of date when they are older than the corresponding Slice source file, or when they are older than any Slice file included directly or indirectly by this Slice source file.

Ice Builder for MSBuild requires Ice 3.6 or higher, and MSBuild 4.0 or higher. (MSBuild 4.x is included in Visual Studio 2010). You can configure Ice Builder directly as described below, or within the Visual Studio IDE using the Ice Builder for Visual Studio extension.

Contents

• Installation
• Selecting your Ice Installation
  • Ice NuGet
  • Other Ice Installation on Windows
• Adding Slice Files to your Project
• Compiling and Linking your Project with Ice
• Selecting the Slice to C++ Mapping
• Customizing the Slice to C++ Compilation
• Customizing the Slice to C# Compilation
• Building Ice Builder from Source
  • Build Requirements
  • Build Instructions

Installation

To install Ice Builder, you just need to add the zeroc.icebuilder.msbuild NuGet package to your C++ or C# MSBuild project.

For C++ projects, zeroc.icebuilder.msbuild inserts its SliceCompile task before the default Compile task, and inserts its SliceClean task before the default Clean task. SliceCompile generates C++ code using slice2cpp and adds the generated C++ files to the ClCompile items. All the Slice files in a given project are compiled through a single slice2cpp invocation.

For C# projects, zeroc.icebuilder.msbuild inserts its SliceCompile task before the default Compile task, and inserts its SliceClean task before the default Clean task. SliceCompile generates C# code using slice2cs and adds the generated C# files to the C# Compile items. All the Slice files in a given project are compiled through a single slice2cs invocation.

Selecting your Ice Installation

Ice Builder for MSBuild relies on the following MSBuild properties to locate and validate your Ice installation:

Property	Description	Used for
IceHome	Root directory of your Ice installation	$(IceHome)/slice, the Slice files of your Ice installation
IceToolsPath	Directory of slice2cpp and slice2cs	Compiling Slice files into C++ or C#
IceIntVersion	Ice version as an integer	Making sure you are using a version of Ice supported by Ice Builder

Ice NuGet

If you add a zeroc.ice. NuGet package to your project, the NuGet package sets these properties:

Property	Value with Ice NuGet
IceHome	The Ice NuGet's root installation folder
IceToolsPath	The NuGet's tools folder on Windows, /usr/bin on Linux, /usr/local/bin on macOS
IceIntVersion	The version of Ice installed by this NuGet package

Other Ice Installation on Windows

If you don't install Ice as a NuGet package and you don't set IceHome in your project file, Ice Builder reads the value for IceHome from the Windows registry using the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ZeroC\IceBuilder\IceHome. It also reads IceIntVersion from the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ZeroC\IceBuilder\IceIntVersion.

The value for these Windows registry keys are set by the Ice Builder for Visual Studio.

Adding Slice Files to your Project

You need to tell Ice Builder which Slice files (files with a .ice extension) to compile, by adding these files to your project.

You can add all Slice files found in your project's home directory and any of its sub-directories (and sub-sub directories, recursively) to your project by setting both EnableDefaultItems and EnableDefaultSliceCompileItems to true. The default value for EnableDefaultSliceCompileItems is true while the default value for EnableDefaultItems depends on the project's type. The default value of EnabledDefaultItems is true for .NET Core projects, and it's unset (or false) for C++ and .NET Framework projects.

As an alternative, you can add Slice files to your project using the SliceCompile item type, for example:

<ItemGroup>
    <SliceCompile Include="../Hello.ice"/>
</ItemGroup>

Compiling and Linking your Project with Ice

If you add an Ice NuGet to your project, the NuGet configures your project to compile and link your code with Ice. For example, for C++ projects, it adds the correct include directory to ClCompile's AdditionalIncludeDirectories metadata, and more.

If you use an Ice 3.6 MSI or Web Install binary distribution, Ice Builder imports a property file from the binary distribution, and this property file performs the same setup.

These properties are not set automatically for other Ice installations, such as source builds.

Ice Builder adds automatically the code generated by the Slice compilers (slice2cpp for C++, slice2cs for C#) to the ClCompile item type (C++) and to the Compile item type (C#).

📝 AdditionalIncludeDirectories for C++ Projects

During C++ compilation, the C++ source code generated by slice2cpp and your own C++ source code need to find the generated C++ header files. With the default settings, these header files are stored in $(IntDir) alongside the generated C++ source files, and you need to add this directory to ClCompile's AdditionalIncludeDirectories:

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
    <ClCompile>
        <!-- SliceCompile for C++ puts generated header files in $(IntDir) -->
        <AdditionalIncludeDirectories>$(IntDir)</AdditionalIncludeDirectories>
    </ClCompile>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

Selecting the Slice to C++ Mapping

As of Ice 3.7, slice2cpp generates C++ code for two mappings, the Slice to C++11 mapping and the Slice to C++98 mapping. You select the C++ mapping used by your C++ code by defining or not defining ICE_CPP11_MAPPING during C++ compilation.

Ice Builder selects C++11 as the default mapping when using Visual Studio 2015 or greater, and C++98 as the default mapping with older versions of Visual Studio. You can overwrite this default by setting the property IceCppMapping to cpp11 (for the C++11 mapping) or to cpp98 (for the C++98 mapping). For example:

<PropertyGroup>
    <IceCppMapping>cpp98</IceCppMapping>
</PropertyGroup>

Setting IceCppMapping to cpp11 is equivalent to adding ICE_CPP11_MAPPING to the PreprocessorDefinitions item metadata of ClCompile for all configurations and platforms. This setting is ignored unless you are using Ice 3.7 with Visual Studio 2015 or greater.

Setting IceCppMapping to cpp98 has currently no effect other than overwriting the default value with Visual Studio 2015 or greater.

Customizing the Slice to C++ Compilation

You can customize the options passed by Ice Builder to slice2cpp by setting the following SliceCompile item metadata:

Item Metadata	Default Value	Corresponding slice2cpp Option
OutputDir	$(IntDir)	--output-dir
HeaderOutputDir		(none)
IncludeDirectories		-I
BaseDirectoryForGeneratedInclude		--include-dir
HeaderExt	.h	--header-ext
SourceExt	.cpp	--source-ext
AdditionalOptions		(any)

OutputDir: Ice Builder instructs slice2cpp to generate C++ files in this directory. The value you specify can change depending on the platform and configuration. With a variable value such as $(IntDir) (the default), cleaning a given configuration and platform with SliceCompileClean does not affect other configurations and platforms.

HeaderOutputDir: if you set this metadata, Ice Builder moves the header files generated by slice2cpp to the specified directory, otherwise they remain in the same directory as the generated source files (OutputDir).

IncludeDirectories: Ice Builder invokes slice2cpp with -I for all the directories specified by this metadata, followed by -I $(IceHome)/slice. As a result, you never need to include $(IceHome)/slice in this list.

For example, you can set HeaderOutputDir as follows:

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
    <SliceCompile>
       <HeaderOutputDir>..\include\generated\$(IntDir)</HeaderOutputDir>
    </SliceCompile>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

and then add this directory to ClCompile's AdditionalIncludeDirectories:

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
    <ClCompile>
        <AdditionalIncludeDirectories>..\include\generated\$(IntDir)</AdditionalIncludeDirectories>
    </ClCompile>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

Customizing the Slice to C# Compilation

You can customize the options passed by Ice Builder to slice2cs by setting the following SliceCompile item metadata:

Item Metadata	Default Value	Corresponding slice2cs Option
OutputDir	$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)/generated	--output-dir
IncludeDirectories		-I
AdditionalOptions		(any)

IncludeDirectories: Ice Builder invokes slice2cs with -I for all the directories specified by this metadata, followed by -I $(IceHome)/slice. As a result, you never need to include $(IceHome)/slice in this list.

For example, you can set IncludeDirectories as follows:

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
    <SliceCompile>
        <IncludeDirectories>../shared/slice;.</IncludeDirectories>
    </SliceCompile>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

Building Ice Builder from Source

Build Requirements

You need Visual Studio 2017 with the .NET Core cross-development toolset.

Build Instructions

Open a Visual Studio Command prompt and run the following command:

MSBuild msbuild\icebuilder.proj /t:Restore
MSBuild msbuild\icebuilder.proj /t:NuGetPack

You can sign the assemblies with Authenticode by setting the environment variable SIGN_CERTIFICATE to the path of your PFX certificate store, and the SIGN_PASSWORD environment variable to the password used by your certificate store.