Using Windows/Linux Makefile with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Question

I have a Makefile that I use to build my application in both Windows and Linux. All complex project- and platform-related stuff are already dealt in this Makefile.

Today, I use a common editor to code and call GNU make from command line. Now I am considering to move to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. I already use MSVS2010 when debuging using a not-configured Intel Visual Fortran Empty Project with my files.

I don't want to duplicate my work configuring a new Visual Studio project and I want to use the Makefile instead.

Is there a way to do it with MSVS2010? Or, is there any other better way to keep the configuration at one place "usable" from Windows and Linux?

Answer 1

In the somewhat distant past I used VC++2005 in just this way. The trick is to create an external project (or command-line project or something like that—I forget the terminology now). The command-line you give to this project is make -j4 target (ymmv). Naturally the makefile needs to use cl as the compiler, link as the linker &c.

Now everthing is hooked up, and you can press the f7 key in VC++ to build your project, and f4 takes you through the errors. [I used cygwin make, and it all worked rather well.]