An Overview of vcpkg in 10 Minutes

hi my name is Augustine Popa and I'm a product manager on the Microsoft C++ team working on VC package VC package is a free and open- Source CN C++ package manager it is designed with Simplicity in mind solving many common problems that come up when managing Library dependencies some of these problems are intrinsic to these programming languages and require a more creative solution than you perhaps may be used to with package managers for other languages in this video I will give an overview of VC package and how it can support you as a developer in just under 10 minutes whether you are a student hobbyist developer or professional in the industry I hope you will find this tool helpful for your CN C++ development VC package is supported on Windows Mac OS and Linux and can run on your local machine or your preferred continuous integration environment you can also use it with your preferred compiler or build system as VC package is designed to be as flexible as possible it also builds packages from Source meaning you can choose your preferred build configuration including platform architecture and compiler Flags so that it matches your development environment in CN C++ this is important because a project cannot depend on a library that is compiled in a different way with that said you can absolutely download pre-built libraries using the binary caching feature this feature allows you to point to a package feed like iub packages Azure artifacts or a Nate feed HTTP provider or other cloud storage provider that allows you to upload and store Buy binaries and other files once this link is active VC package will automatically cach libraries and builds and subsequently download them from the cache when someone else on your team or your continuous integration system needs a new copy in other words you only need to build from Source once then cash the output for reuse later BC package will verify if something has changed in your build configuration and do a fresh build only if necessary in VC package a port is a build recipe that produces a package package a port has a version number for the corresponding package it produces as well as a port version that is used when you want to make changes to the build recipe itself VC package also has triplets a triplet captures the target build environment such as the CPU OS compiler and runtime in a single convenient name VC package provides over 70 default tripl lists that you can build with but you can also Define your own to install a package on your system VC package runs a port file which is a cake script the script typically contains steps to download source code or run a build but can do a lot more as it is highly customizable BC package comes with a massive open- Source Library registry that is actively maintained by the CN C++ Community you can download over 2,000 unique customizable and publicly available CN C++ libraries you can choose with versions or features of these libraries you wish to install and as stated earlier VC package can produce a custom build based on your desired Bill configuration VC package will automatically install any transitive dependencies that is dependencies of dependencies without you having to list every single one out furthermore the VC package open source registry is Thoroughly tested by a continuous integration process the CNC Plus+ Library ecosystem is very fragmented and diverse many libraries depend on each other and sometimes they disagree about things like what version of another Library they want VC package resolves all of this in the open source registry the registry is a git repo and at any point in time in the history of that repo acts as a baseline tracking a set of libraries that are each set to a particular version whatever Baseline you choose to follow you can download the libraries of your choosing without having to manually resolve version conflicts yourself there are two ways to install libraries using VC package classic Mode allows you to run console commands specifying which libraries you want these libraries are then installed under the VC package inst directory this is an easy way to get started with VC package if you're just looking to get up and running fast however for most users we recommend manifest mode in this mode VC package takes a manifest file called VC package.json as input and builds packages in a subfolder of your actual project the Manifest file can list your library dependencies library features version constraints and other relevant inputs since this is a basic text file you can check it into your Source control repository so your whole team can make use of it furthermore it is very useful for achieving reproducible builds VC package will strictly follow the instructions in the Manifest file and will never change the libraries versions or features it installs afterward if you want to make a change to your dependencies in the future you must edit the Manifest file accordingly to give VC package new instructions VC package versions packages differently than most package managers as I mentioned earlier you can list out your desired packages and point to a baseline which provides you with a reasonable set of default package versions but you can also Define a minimum version constraint or an override a minimum version constraint lets you set a particular package to a version greater than the Baseline there's no such thing as a maximum version constraint in VC package as it will always choose the minimum one that agrees with your manifest file if you set a minimum version constraint it will only attempt to download a higher version if VC package detects that the minimum version won't build successfully with your other dependencies but given a particular manifest file as input VC package will always build the exact same set of dependencies every time whether you do it today or five years in the future lastly VC package supports overrides overrides let you ignore VC package's normal version resolution and opt for more traditional package management experience where you can pick and choose exactly which versions of a package you want to install however this does leave it up to you to resolve any version conflicts that may arise we recommend using overrides only when absolutely necessary I me mentioned earlier that VC package comes with a large open source registry of libraries but you can also Define your own custom Registries for other libraries this works fundamentally the same way as the open source registry for instance you can set up a registry as a git repo and take advantage of the versioning and manifest features that VC package provides a registry can also be configured as a basic file system a common application of Registries popular with professional teams is to Fork the open source registry so you have your own private copy this lets you tight control everything that goes into the registry and what your developers can access you can run your own custom scans and ensure you are meeting any compliance or security requirements for your organization and since it's a fork you can pull from the VC package public registry anytime you want to get updates you may also want to set up a registry for your own private libraries you can organize these as you see fit and give your team the same user interface to install these libraries as they would be using for open source ones now I mentioned earlier that VC packages build system agnostic you can configure it with your preferred environment with that said VC package has some additional support for Ms build and cmake projects that is worth calling out in manifest mode you can configure your project system to automatically run VC package so that it can restore any dependencies that are needed on the fly at build time in Ms build this is done by setting some project properties in cmake this is done by pointing to the VC package cic tool chain file another benefit of doing this configuration step is that these build systems will become aware of the locations where VC package is installing libraries so you don't have to manually point to where your library headers and binaries will be located next let's talk about IDE and editor support as a VC package has grown in popularity it has been adopted by several different coding environments the visual studio IDE actually SS actually ships with VC package if you choose to include C++ components during the installation process but you can also use an external copy of VC package which is necessary if you want to use classic mode and install libraries to location of your choosing outside of your project in Visual Studio installation directory VC package is also supported in Visual Studio code you will need to use an external copy of VC package and install the Microsoft CN C++ extension and if you are a cmake user we recommend also installing the cmake tools extension lastly the jetbrain cine IDE also added VC package integration you can find documentation about this experience on their website another VC package feature useful for professional development teams in particular is asset caching asset caching allows VC package to work in an offline build environment which some organizations prefer for security reasons it is also useful if you have continuity of business rules to comply with it uses download mirrors to upload and restore assets like source code and build tools needed to install packages and that's it this video covered all the major features currently available in VC package keep in mind that VC package is an active open source project and we are continuing to add to it over time if you want to learn more there are a few resources available first you can check out our website at VC package. our documentation can be found at learn. microsoft.com VC package lastly our main GitHub repo can be found at github.com Microsoft slvc package