==Building with Microsoft Visual Studio==

This section describes how to build QGIS using Visual Studio (MSVC) 2015 on Windows.
This is currently also how the binary QGIS packages are made (earlier versions used MinGW).

This section describes the setup required to allow Visual Studio to be used to
build QGIS.

===Visual C++ Community Edition===

The free (as in free beer) Community installer is available under:

	http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/2/3/D23F4D0F-BA2D-4600-8725-6CCECEA05196/vs_community_ENU.exe

===Other tools and dependencies===

Download and install following packages:

|| Tool | Website |
| CMake | https://cmake.org/files/v3.12/cmake-3.12.3-win64-x64.msi |
| GNU flex, GNU bison and GIT | http://cygwin.com/setup-x86.exe (32bit) or http://cygwin.com/setup-x86_64.exe (64bit) |
| OSGeo4W | http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/osgeo4w-setup-x86.exe (32bit) or http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/osgeo4w-setup-x86_64.exe (64bit) |
| ninja | https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases/download/v1.7.2/ninja-win.zip |

For the QGIS build you need to install following packages from cygwin:
- bison
- flex
- git
-

and from OSGeo4W (select //Advanced Installation//):

- qgis-dev-deps
-

This will also select packages the above packages depend on.

  If you install other packages, this might cause issues. Particularly, make sure
  **not** to install the msinttypes package. It installs a stdint.h file in
  OSGeo4W[64]\include, that conflicts with Visual Studio own stdint.h, which for
  example breaks the build of the virtual layer provider.

Earlier versions of this document also covered how to build all above
dependencies.  If you're interested in that, check the history of this page in the Wiki
or the SVN repository.

ninja:
  copy ninja.exe to d:\OSGeo4W64\bin\

=== Setting up the Visual Studio project with CMake ===

/!\ Consider this section as example.  It tends to outdate, when OSGeo4W and
SDKs move on.  ``ms-windows/osgeo4w/package-nightly.cmd`` is used for the
nightly builds and constantly updated and hence might contain necessary
updates that are not yet reflected here.

To start a command prompt with an environment that both has the VC++ and the OSGeo4W
variables create the following batch file (assuming the above packages were
installed in the default locations):

```
@echo off
call X:\src\qgis\ms-windows\osgeo4w\msvc-env.bat x86_64
@cmd
```

Save the batch file as ``d:\OSGeo4W64\OSGeo4W-dev.bat`` and run it.
On the command prompt checkout the QGIS source from
git to the source directory ``QGIS``:

```
git clone git://github.com/qgis/QGIS.git
```

And, to avoid Git in Windows reporting changes to files not actually modified:

```
git config core.filemode false
```


Using configonly.bat to create the MSVC solution file:
  We will be using the file ms-windows/osgeo4w/configonly.bat to create an MSVC solution file.
  There are a few options for a solution file, following are the options: ninja, native MSVC.
  The advantage of using native MSVC solution is that you can find the root of build problems much easily.
  configonly.bat is meant to create a configured build directory with a MSVC solution file:

  ```
  configonly.bat
  ```

Compiling QGIS with MSVC:
  We will need to run MSVC with all the environment variables set, thus we will run it as follows:
  Run the batch file OSGeo4W-dev.bat you created before. On the command prompt run: ``devenv``
  From MSVC, open the solution file
  ``d:\OSGeo4W64\QGIS\ms-windows\osgeo4w\build-qgis-test-x86_64\qgis.sln``
  Try to build the solution [go grab a cup of tea, it may take a while].
  If it fails, run it again and again until there are [hopefully] no errors.


Running QGIS from within MSVC:
  Edit the properties of the project ALL_BUILD:
  Debugging -> Command -> D:\OSGeo4W64\QGIS\ms-windows\osgeo4w\build-qgis-test-x86_64\output\bin\RelWithDebInfo\qgis.exe
  Run.
  Ignore the "These projects are out of date" message, it appears even if no files were changed.


Old alternative method that might still work using cmake-gui:
  Create a 'build' directory somewhere. This will be where all the build output
  will be generated.

  Now run ``cmake-gui`` (still from ``cmd``) and in the //Where is the source code://
  box, browse to the top level QGIS directory.

  In the //Where to build the binaries:// box, browse to the 'build' directory you
  created.

  If the path to bison and flex contains blanks, you need to use the short name
  for the directory (i.e. ``C:\Program Files`` should be rewritten to
  ``C:\Progra~n``, where ``n`` is the number as shown in `dir /x C:\``).

  Verify that the 'BINDINGS_GLOBAL_INSTALL' option is not checked, so that python
  bindings are placed into the output directory when you run the INSTALL target.

  Hit ``Configure`` to start the configuration and select ``Visual Studio 9 2008``
  and keep ``native compilers`` and click ``Finish``.

  The configuration should complete without any further questions and allow you to
  click ``Generate``.

  Now close ``cmake-gui`` and continue on the command prompt by starting
  ``vcexpress``.  Use File / Open / Project/Solutions and open the
  qgis-x.y.z.sln File in your project directory.

  Change ``Solution Configuration`` from ``Debug`` to ``RelWithDebInfo`` (Release
  with Debug Info)  or ``Release`` before you build QGIS using the ALL_BUILD
  target (otherwise you need debug libraries that are not included).

  After the build completed you should install QGIS using the INSTALL target.

  Install QGIS by building the INSTALL project. By default this will install to
  c:\Program Files\qgis<version> (this can be changed by changing the
  CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable in cmake-gui).

  You will also either need to add all the dependency DLLs to the QGIS install
  directory or add their respective directories to your PATH.

=== Packaging ===

To create a standalone installer there is a perl script named 'creatensis.pl'
in 'qgis/ms-windows/osgeo4w'.  It downloads all required packages from OSGeo4W
and repackages them into an installer using NSIS.


The script can be run on both Windows and Linux.

On Debian/Ubuntu you can just install the 'nsis' package.

NSIS for Windows can be downloaded at:

	http://nsis.sourceforge.net

And Perl for Windows (including other requirements like 'wget', 'unzip', 'tar'
and 'bzip2') is available at:

	http://cygwin.com

=== Packaging your own build of QGIS ===

Assuming you have completed the above packaging step, if you want to include
your own hand built QGIS executables, you need to copy them in from your
windows installation into the ms-windows file tree created by the creatensis
script.

```
cd ms-windows/
rm -rf osgeo4w/unpacked/apps/qgis/*
cp -r /tmp/qgis1.7.0/* osgeo4w/unpacked/apps/qgis/
```

Now create a package.

```
./quickpackage.sh
```

After this you should now have a nsis installer containing your own build
of QGIS and all dependencies needed to run it on a windows machine.


=== Osgeo4w packaging ===

The actual packaging process is currently not documented, for now please take a
look at:

//ms-windows/osgeo4w/package.cmd//