How do I use devkitPro toolchains with Visual C++ Express?
Start a new project and select makefile, on the general tab. Enter the name of the project and the folder where it will be located, leaving the ‘Create directory for solution’ box unchecked. Click OK.
In the following dialog type
make -r 2>&1 | sed -e 's/\(.[a-zA-Z]\+\):\([0-9]\+\):/\1(\2):/’
in the ‘Build command line:’ box. Under ‘Clean commands:’ type “make clean”. The sed part of this command is used to parse the output from gcc and translate the error messages so Visual C++ Express understands them and allows clicking on the errors to take you to the relevant file.
The makefiles provided with the devkitPro example projects are designed to make life as easy as possible for the programmer. In most cases all you need to do is copy the contents of one of the template projects to the folder where the solution files are. The makefile expects to find .c or .cpp files in the source folder and sets the include path to the include folder. In some cases you may need to add the path to make in the Executable file paths in the Visual C++ Express options.
Thought I might point out that adding directories to the ‘Include search path:’ box will get intellisense working. Here’s an example.
“c:\devkitPro\libnds\include”;”$(ProjectDir)\arm9\include”;”$(ProjectDir)\arm7\include”;
Note that you have to add paths to your own files. Also don’t use the Environment Vars DEVKITPRO and friends that the installer creates. They’re meant to be used with msys so visual studio won’t find anything using them.