This elisp library contains a function to read all the environment variables set by all configurations of all Visual C++ installations on a Windows machine. It then creates a new library named windows-dev-environment.el that contains one function for each of the configurations found. These functions set up all the environment variables set by the vcvarsall.bat scripts.
Remember, this library generates another library. You only use this library whenever you want to recreate the generated library.
To generate a new library, start Emacs and then M-x load-file and load the file environment-vars.el. Then run M-x jds/create-library. A new file will be created in your current directory named windows-dev-environment.el. This is the generated library that contains the functions to set the VC++ environment variables.
The generated library should be placed in your load-path and then included in your .emacs or init.el as follows:
(require 'windows-dev-environment)
(setup-ms-dev-environment-14-0-x86)
Replace the function call with the function for the appropriate environment. In the function above, “14-0” is the version of Visual Studio (14.0) and “x86” is the configuration. For more information on configurations, see the relevant Microsoft documentation for vcvarsall.bat.
The generated functions are all interactive, so they can be called via M-x if you prefer.
The generated library only sets environment variables. It does not do any other setup for working with Visual C++.
None of this should be required if you are using MinGW or a non-VC++ compiler.
There is no function to restore the original environment. If you need to go back to the original environment, you must restart Emacs.
Even though I’ve written it so that it should (theoretically) work with all versions of Visual Studio that use vcvarsall.bat to set up the environment, I’ve only actually tested it on Visual Studio 2015. Open an issue if it doesn’t work on other versions and I’ll see what I can do. I don’t program much in Windows and my Visual Studio-fu isn’t very good.
The library provided here uses the ISC license, which is similar to the BSD and MIT licenses. See LICENSE for details. It is GPL compatible.
The generated library is public domain where such things exist, and Creative Commons 0 (CC0) where public domain isn’t applicable.