This directory contains MS Visual Studio project & solution files.

#Supported Visual Studio versions

Currently supported versions are Visual Studio 2013 (our primary focus) and 2010.

#Building We are using NuGet to pull zlib and openssl dependencies. If you don‘t have Visual Studio NuGet plugin installed, you’ll need to download nuget.exe from the web and manually restore the NuGet packages.

> REM Run from this directory.
> REM No need to do this if you have NuGet visual studio extension.
> nuget restore grpc.sln

After that, you can build the solution using one of these options:

1. open grpc.sln with Visual Studio and hit “Build”.
2. build from commandline using msbuild grpc.sln /p:Configuration=Debug

#C/C++ Test Dependencies

• gtest isn't available as a git repo like the other dependencies. download it and add it to /third_party/gtest/ (the folder will end up with /build-aux/, /cmake/, /codegear/, etc. folders in it).
  * if using vs2013: open/import the gtest solution in /msvc/, and save over the first solution (you will have to change it from read-only). change all projects to use /MDd (Property Pages - C/C++ - Code Generation - Runtime Library) and build. This is a “multithreaded debug” setting and it needs to match grpc. * build all
• open protobuf solution in /third_party/protobuf/vsprojects * if using vs2013: on import the gtest stuff will probably fail, I think the paths are interpreted wrong. it's ok. * tests and test_plugin will fail when built. also ok * build all
• gflags is automatically imported as a git submodule but it needs to have CMake run on it to be ready for a specific platform * download CMake windows installer; install * open visual studio developer command prompt (not sure if dev command prompt is necessary) * run cmake <path to gtest directory> * this will build a .sln and fill up the /third_party/gflags/include/gflags/ directory with headers * build all
• install NuGet * nuget should automatically bring in built versions of zlib and openssl when building grpc.sln (the versions in /third_party/ are not used). If it doesn't work use tools->nuget...->manage.... The packages are put in /vsprojects/packages/

#C/C++ Test Solution/Project Build Steps

• A basic git version of grpc only has templates for non-test items. This checklist adds test items to grpc.sln and makes individual vs projects for them
• set up dependencies (above)
• add "debug": true, to the top of build.json. This is the base file for all build tracking, see templates for more information * "debug": true, gets picked up by /tools/buildgen/plugins/generate_vsprojects.py. It tells the script to add visual studio GUIDs to all projects. Otherwise only the projects that already have GUIDs in build.json will be built
• run /templates/vsprojects/generate_debug_projects.sh to make debug templates/projects. This runs a regular visual studio buildgen process, which creates the .sln file with all of the new debug projects, then uses git diff to find the new project names from the .sln that need templates added. It builds the new templates based on the diff, then re-runs the visual studio buildgen, which builds the vs projects for each of the new debug targets * copy over the /vsprojects/ folder to your windows build setup (assuming this was built on linux in order to have easy access to python/mako and shell scripts)
• run /templates/vsprojects/build_test_protos.sh * this builds all .proto files in /test/ in-place. there might be a better place to put them that mirrors what happens in the linux build process (todo) * each .proto file gets built into a .grpc.pb.cc, .grpc.pb.h, .pb.cc, and .pb.h. These are included in each test project in lieu of the .proto includes specified in build.json. This substitution is done by /templates/vsprojects/vcxproj_defs.include * copy over the /test/ folder in order to get the new files (assuming this was built on linux in order to have an easy protobuf+grpc plugin installation)

#Making and running tests with /tools/run_tests/run_tests.py or /vsprojects/make.bat run_tests.py and make.bat both rely on /vsprojects/grpc.mak, an NMAKE script that includes C/C++ tests in addition to the base grpc projects. It builds the base projects by calling grpc.sln, but most things are built with a command line similar to a makefile workflow.

arguments for /vsprojects/make.bat:

• no options or all or buildtests: builds all tests
• buildtests_c: just c tests
• buildtests_cxx: just c++ tests
• names of individual tests: just those tests (example: make.bat gpr_string_test)

using run_tests.py on windows:

• when run_tests.py detects that it's running on windows it calls make.bat to build the tests and expects to find tests in /vsprojects/test_bins/

run_tests.py options:

• run_tests.py --help
• run_tests.py -l c: run c language tests
• run_tests.py -l c++: run c++ language tests
• note: run_tests.py doesn't normally show build steps, so if a build fails it is best to fall back to make.bat
• if make.bat fails, it might be easier to open up the .sln file in the visual studio gui (see above for how to build the test projects) and build the offending test from its project file. The .mak and project file templates are slightly different, so it's possible that a project will build one way and not another. Please report this if it happens.

It can be helpful to disable the firewall when running tests so that 400 connection warnings don't pop up.

Individual tests can be run by directly running the executable in /vsprojects/run_tests/ (this is /bins/opt/ on linux). Many C tests have no output; they either pass or fail internally and communicate this with their exit code (0=pass, nonzero=fail)

run_tests.py will fail if it can't build something, so not-building tests are disabled with a “platforms = posix” note in build.json. The buildgen tools will not add a test to a windows build unless it is marked “windows” or has no platforms identified. As tests are ported they will get this mark removed.

Building protoc plugins

For generating service stub code, gRPC relies on plugins for protoc (the protocol buffer compiler). The solution grpc_protoc_plugins.sln allows you to build Windows .exe binaries of gRPC protoc plugins.

1. Follow instructions in third_party\protobuf\cmake\README.md to create Visual Studio 2013 projects for protobuf.

$ cd third_party/protobuf/cmake
$ cmake -G "Visual Studio 12 2013"

2. Open solution third_party\protobuf\cmake\protobuf.sln and build it in Release mode. That will build libraries libprotobuf.lib and libprotoc.lib needed for the next step.

3. Open solution vsprojects\grpc_protoc_plugins.sln and build it in Release mode. As a result, you should obtain a set of gRPC protoc plugin binaries (grpc_cpp_plugin.exe, grpc_csharp_plugin.exe, ...)