vcpkg/docs/tool-maintainers/layout.md

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Layout of the vcpkg source tree

All vcpkg sources and build systems are in toolsrc. If you'd like to contribute to the vcpkg tool itself, most of your time will be spent in here.

Build Files

These are the files used to build and configure the project. In order to build with CMake, the only files you should be interested in are CMakeLists.txt, and .clang-format; in order to build with msbuild or the Visual Studio IDE, you will be interested in dirs.proj or vcpkg.sln. However, if you add or remove files, you will need to edit the MSBuild project files in the vcpkg* directories no matter what system you use.

Top Level

We have six files in this directory -- one .clang-format file, one CMakeLists.txt file, three Visual Studio files, and VERSION.txt.

  • .clang-format: This is where we store the formatting settings of the project. If you want to format the project, you can use the format target with the CMake build system.
  • CMakeLists.txt: This is where the CMake build system definition lives. If you want to modify how one builds the project, or add a target, you can do it here.
  • VERSION.txt: This is a file which tells vcpkg to tell the user to rebuild. If this version is different from the version when the user built the binary (for example, after a git pull or a vcpkg update), then vcpkg will print a message to re-bootstrap. This is updated whenever major changes are made to the vcpkg tool.
  • The Visual Studio files:
    • vcpkg.natvis: NATVIS files allow one to visualize objects of user defined type in the debugger -- this one contains the definitions for vcpkg's types.
    • dirs.proj: This is how one builds with msbuild without calling into the IDE.
    • vcpkg.sln: The solution file is how one opens the project in the VS IDE.

Source Files

If you're modifying the project, it's likely that these are the directories that you're going to deal with.

include

There's one file in here -- pch.h. This contains most of the C++ standard library, and acts as a precompiled header. You can read more at the link.

There are three directories:

  • catch2 -- This contains the single-header library catch2. We use this library for both testing and benchmarking.
  • vcpkg -- This contains the header files for the vcpkg project. All of the interfaces for building, installing, and generally "port stuff" live here.
    • vcpkg/base -- This contains the interfaces for the "vcpkg standard library" -- file handling, hashing, strings, Span<T>, printing, etc.
  • vcpkg-test -- This contains the interfaces for any common utilities required by the tests.

src

The source files live here. pch.cpp is the source file for the precompiled header; vcpkg.cpp is where the vcpkg binary lives.

The interesting files live in the vcpkg and vcpkg-test directories. In vcpkg, you have the implementation for the interfaces that live in include/vcpkg; and in vcpkg-test, you have the tests and benchmarks.