CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++visual-studio-2010visual-studioindexing
jfritz42
jfritz42

Reputation: 5993

Does Visual Studio support C++ code indexing?

Does Visual Studio have a source code indexing feature for C++? That is, it statically parses your project, storing symbols in an index, such that you can easily and quickly jump to a definition of a symbol or see uses of it (i.e. call hierarchy)?

From what I can tell, in Visual Studio 2010, it has "Go to Definition" and "View Call Hierarchy" functions (if you right-click a symbol), but it takes a long time (a minute on my project) to find the info and do the action. It seems to be doing a crude text search in some cases.

I'm used to using Eclipse, which has an indexer, so those actions are almost instantaneous (after the indexing has completed).

Upvotes: 1

Views: 8308

Answers (1)

Chromozon
Chromozon

Reputation: 305

Yes, Visual Studio Intellisense does just this. If your "go to definition" is taking a long time, it indicates that the project is not set up properly inside Visual Studio. You should be able to hover the mouse over a symbol (function name, variable name, etc.) and Intellisense should pop up instantly.

One cause of slow or incorrect Intellisense is creating a new project from a folder structure. If you have a bunch of .cpp and .h files in a complicated folder hierarchy, sometimes the project does not get created in a way that Intellisense can easily do symbol indexing. Also, if your project uses a lot of third party libraries, you need to make sure the header files are included in your project or else Intellisense will not be able to do anything with those symbols.

Upvotes: 1

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