How to set $(OutDir), $(TargetName), $(TargetExt), and %(Lib.OutputFile) with Visual Studio?

Question

I\'m trying to build gtest on Visual Studio 2010. After converting the solution file, I tried to build, and I got the following warning messages.

Warning 1           


        

Answer 1

The background to this is that Microsoft changed the meaning of the $(TargetName) macro. It used to mean "whatever filename you put in Linker | Output File, minus the extension". They changed it to "by default, the name of your project". (This is something you should never do, in my view; they should have added a new macro).

Whereas VS2008 and earlier were able to parse the file name out of the Linker setting, apparently they were not able to parse it out in the migration to newer versions, leaving our configurations broken.

The warning itself is probably not important, but if you use $(TargetName), say by passing it to a batch file, this change will break your batch process.

For us, the solution has been to copy the file name (minus extension) from Linker | Output File to General | Target Name, and then set Linker | Output File to "inherit from parent/default". This is because we use suffixes like "d" (for debug), "u" for Unicode, _64 for 64-bit and so forth.

On the other hand, if your output file always matches the name of the project, then all you need to do is set Linker | Output File to "inherit default" and you're done, in principle - providing that the output directory you want for your compiled file matches General | Output Directory.

This change is absolutely infuriating because it involves moving literally hundreds of settings around, all due to sheer laziness on Microsoft's part, as far as I can see.