Activity

1. Andrew Wang (WardenGnaw)

   added

   debugger

   Feature Request

   on May 3, 2023
2. SimonQi1 commented on Sep 6, 2023

   

   Simon (SimonQi1)

   on Sep 6, 2023

   More actions

   Will it get support for multplie natvis files？when using cppvsdbg

   👀React with 👀3Reacted by LiGengLei, Guus Waals and Jeremy Servoz
3. aiyolo commented on May 2, 2024

   

   aiyolo (aiyolo)

   on May 2, 2024

   More actions

   after several months, does this feature has any progress now?
4. sean-mcmanus commented on May 2, 2024

   

   Sean McManus (sean-mcmanus)

   on May 2, 2024

   Contributor

   More actions

   aiyolo (@aiyolo) No. It's currently the 10th most upvoted debugger feature: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc+label%3Adebugger
5. dimateos commented on May 17, 2024

   

   Diego Mateos (dimateos)

   on May 17, 2024

   More actions

   Yeah, I use cppvsdbg and this is a bummer. I tend to use many natvis for boost https://github.com/KindDragon/CPPDebuggerVisualizers...

   But I would still prefer a directory (or list of them) to simply target many natvis files microsoft/MIEngine#1049
6. bradphelan commented on Jun 25, 2024

   

   Brad Phelan (bradphelan)

   on Jun 25, 2024

   More actions

   A work-around the concats all natvis files together

   natvis.cmake

   function(concatenate_natvis_files natvis_files out_file)
   
       # Prepare the output file path
       set(output_path "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${out_file}")
   
       # Define the path to the Python script
       set(PYTHON_SCRIPT "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/dev/cmake/natvis.py")
   
       # Call the Python script with the list of natvis files and the output path
       add_custom_command(
           OUTPUT ${output_path}
           COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E echo "Concatenating .natvis files..."
           COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E env python ${PYTHON_SCRIPT} ${natvis_files} ${output_path}
           COMMENT "Running Python script to concatenate .natvis files and remove duplicates"
           DEPENDS ${natvis_files} ${PYTHON_SCRIPT}
       )
   
       # Ensure the output file is built
       add_custom_target(run_concat_natvis ALL DEPENDS ${output_path})
   endfunction()

   natvis.py

   import os
   import sys
   import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
   
   
   ET.register_namespace('', "http://schemas.microsoft.com/vstudio/debugger/natvis/2010")
   
   def concatenate_natvis_files(natvis_files, output_path):
       seen_types = set()
       namespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/vstudio/debugger/natvis/2010"
       auto_visualizer = ET.Element('AutoVisualizer')
       namespaces = {"vis": namespace}
   
       for natvis_file in natvis_files:
           print(f"Processing {natvis_file}")
           tree = ET.parse(natvis_file)
           root = tree.getroot()
           print(f"Found {len(root)} types")
   
           for type_element in root.iterfind('vis:Type', namespaces=namespaces):
               type_name = type_element.get('Name')
               print(f"Processing {type_name}")
               if type_name not in seen_types:
                   seen_types.add(type_name)
                   auto_visualizer.append(type_element)
   
       tree = ET.ElementTree(auto_visualizer)
       ET.indent(tree, space="\t", level=0)
       tree.write(output_path, encoding='utf-8', xml_declaration=True, method='xml')
   
   if __name__ == "__main__":
       natvis_files = sys.argv[1:-1]
       output_path = sys.argv[-1]
       concatenate_natvis_files(natvis_files, output_path)

   In your main CMakeLists.txt

   include(natvis)
   option(MW_GENERATE_NATVIS "Generate a natvis file that includes all natvis files in the project" OFF)
   if(MW_GENERATE_NATVIS)
       # Find all .natvis files recursively under the specified directory
       file(GLOB_RECURSE natvis_files "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/dev/*.natvis")
       concatenate_natvis_files("${natvis_files}" "all_natvis_files.natvis")
   endif()

   👍React with 👍1Reacted by Milan Herbig
7. Nicolas Arnaud-Cormos (narnaud)

   added a commit that references this issue on Mar 9, 2025

   test: Add a test project for natvis files

   ...

   31d09e4