[Development] [Windows] State of the Qt6 natvis file

[Marcus Tillmanns]

We even have an option in the VS Tools: https://doc.qt.io/qtvstools/qtvstools-how-to-embed-natvis-files.html

On 24. Feb 2025, at 09:20, Marcus Tillmanns <marcus.tillmanns at qt.io> wrote:

So we should include the natvis with our Qt Installations, and then link them into the .pdb of the user application via some cmake magic I guess?

Cheers,
Marcus

On 24. Feb 2025, at 09:05, Kai Köhne via Development <development at qt-project.org> wrote:

Hi,

this idea of 'embedding' was discussed a while ago, but seems to have major limitations:

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-83396

Citing Olli:

    "I had a look at embedding the natvis files into Qt's pdb files and ran into https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/234531/natvis-in-pdb-is-only-applied-to-associated-dll-vs.html (there is a "Show comments" button on that page). Visualizers that are embedded into modules can only be used inside these modules. So Qt's visualizers can only be used if debugging Qt itself if they are embedded like that."

Unless this is fixed in the meantime, embedding natvis files into Qt dll's seems therefore to be of very limited use.

Kai

________________________________
From: Development <development-bounces at qt-project.org> on behalf of Giuseppe D'Angelo via Development <development at qt-project.org>
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2025 21:56
To: development at qt-project.org <development at qt-project.org>
Subject: Re: [Development] [Windows] State of the Qt6 natvis file

Il 21/02/25 19:00, Philippe ha scritto:
> /You can't just copy and use the file because of the "##NAMESPACE##::
> everywhere/
> You can find/replace this token all over the file. Easy and it works
> (using Visual Studio).

Considering PDB has support for embedding natvis files, they should be
patched and embedded when building Qt itself. Alas, it seems that this
isn't possible using CMake APIs, but maybe just passing the right
options to the linker works...?

https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/issues/16874

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/natvis-add-natvis-to-pdb?view=msvc-170


I'd file a suggestion on the task tracker.


Thanks,
--
Giuseppe D'Angelo | giuseppe.dangelo at kdab.com | Senior Software Engineer
KDAB (France) S.A.S., a KDAB Group company
Tel. France +33 (0)4 90 84 08 53, http://www.kdab.com<http://www.kdab.com/>
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