CS106B Handout #5P

Winter 07-08 January 14, 2008

Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Many thanks to Matt Ginzton, Robert Plummer, Erik Neuenschwander, Nick Fang, Justin Manus, Andy Aymeloglu,
Pat Burke, and Tom Hurlbutt.

Using a PC
If you wish to do your assignments on a PC, you will need either Windows 2000 or XP, and
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Note that Windows 98 or Me are not able to run Visual Studio
2005. You should be familiar with the Windows operating system and PCs in general, and be
willing and able to figure out the Visual Studio 2005 environment. The emphasis in class will be on
general programming concepts, not on the workings of Visual Studio (often referred to as just VS),
and the code you write will be virtually identical to code written by students using a Macintosh.

Getting started
In order to use your PC to write the programs for the class, you will need to install both a
compiler and the special 106 libraries for your system.

Step #1: Getting and installing the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 compiler
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install the program. The easy way to do this is to go to http://msdn-
ee.stanford.edu/VisStud2005.html and click on “Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
CD1” and “Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition CD2” to download the disk images (Note
that this download may take quite a while, as the files are large.). Note, however, that accessing
this website requires a Stanford IP address (in other words, you have to be using a computer on
Stanford campus). If you do not have access to a Stanford IP address, or if you would like access
to additional Microsoft products as a side benefit, follow the instructions in Handout #5P-2.
Either way, once you have the disk images, burn the first CD file to a CD, and then the second.
Insert the CD with the first file on it. You should see a dialog box with several options. You
should click on the first one, which will install Visual Studio 2005. Follow the resulting prompts,
and wait for the installation to complete. Congratulations! You now have Visual Studio installed
on your computer.

Windows Vista Users:

If you are running Windows Vista, you will also have to download and install two service packs.
You should first install Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-
us/vstudio/bb265237.aspx),
and then you should install Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=90e2942d-3ad1-4873-
a2ee-4acc0aace5b6&displaylang=en). If you have any further problems, please let the head
TA know.

Step #2: Getting the CS106 libraries

Next you will need to get the CS106 libraries that we’ll be using throughout the course. Please
use the following directions to install these libraries on your PC.
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You can obtain the PC CS Libraries by going to the

address web
http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106b/materials/libraries/ and clicking
http://see.stanford.edu/materials/icspacs106b/PCLibs-VS2005-ADT-Installer.zip on the
PCLIBS download. The file is a ZIP archive that contains an installer for the library files. Here
are the steps to follow:

1. Use your web browser to download the PCLibs for VS2005 archive from the location above.
You will be asked what to do with the file PCLibs.zip; you should save it to a directory on
your computer.

2. Unzip the file PCLibs.zip. Make sure you use the option to expand using original directories.
If you do not have an unzip program, a good one is available at http://www.winzip.com/ (the
Evaluation Version of WinZip may be sufficient for you for the time being unless you plan
on regularly using it). After unzipping PCLibs.zip, you should end up with a few files.

3. Run (and quit) Visual Studio (you can go ahead and register your copy if it asks you). It is
important that you have done this at least once before proceeding to the next step.

4. Double click the file Setup.Exe that was unzipped in step 2. This will install the libraries on
your system.

Once you’ve completed the above steps, you’re ready to roll. The rest of the handout deals with
doing the actual assignments.

Setting up projects*

Every program written using Visual Studio has a project that indicates what different program
files need to be compiled together in order for the complete program to work. We are going to
create a project that uses a simple pre-written program, named add2.cpp. You can download the
code for add2.cpp by using your web browser and visiting the following URL on the CS106B
website: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106b/materials/examples/add2.cpp. Then,
http://see.stanford.edu/materials/icspacs106b/add2.cpp
select the "Save As" option from the File menu to save the file to your own computer (if, instead,
your web browser brings up a dialog box stating that it wants to open the file, choose the option
to save the file to your own computer.) Once you have the .cpp file, you will need to create a
Visual Studio project and add the .cpp file we provide. You will go through the basic process
described below for each programming assignment that you do in this course, using your own
code files.

1. Start Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and from the File menu choose New and then Project…

2. Select the Visual C++ Projects folder in the "Project Types" pane.

3. The type of application that you want to create is "CS106B/X C++ Assignment Wizard";
select this from the list on the left, and type a name for the project (avoid using spaces or
hyphens). Be sure you have selected "CS106B/X C++ Assignment Wizard" as the type of

*
Note: the following instructions are from Visual Studio 2003. Some things may be slightly different in 2005. If
there is anything majorly different, we will post information about it on the course website.
 -3-

the application! Most of the difficulties that students have when setting up projects in this
course come from a failure to follow the instructions in this step. If you select another
project type, the libraries will not work properly.

4. Here is what you should see after carrying out steps 1-3, opening a project and giving it a
name (Add2Example in the screenshot shown on the next page).

5. Choose a location for your project. The default location is a good choice, but it is up to you.
The name of your project will automatically be added to the end of the location you choose.
If you would like to browse around to find the place you want to put the project, click the
"Browse..." button. Note that the location name might be too long to show all at once in the
Location field. To see all of it, click in the field and use the arrow or Home/End keys to move
back and forth. When everything is set, click OK.

6. After clicking OK, the CS106B/X C++ Assignment Wizard might pop-up and ask if you
want to create an empty .cpp file to get you started. Since for this example (and for most of
your assignments) we'll be providing you with starter files, we can go ahead and uncheck the
box and click "Finish" to complete the process.

7. Most assignments will come with a set of starter files. This will usually include a mostly-
empty file for the main program, some include (.h) files, libraries used for that particular
assignment, and maybe some other C++ files (.cpp). These will usually come in the form of a
.zip file that you will download to your computer. At this point you should leave Visual
Studio (you needn't shut the program down), go download the appropriate .zip file for a
given assignment from the class website (if you haven't already), and unzip the files into the
folder (directory) for your project. Note the order here: first you create the new project
 -4-

(steps 1-6 above), then you unzip the files into the folder created by Visual Studio for the
project. For the Add2Example above, go ahead and copy the add2.cpp file to your project
directory.

8. Now return to Visual Studio, because it is time to add the file(s) to your project (just having
them in the directory is not sufficient). If you previously closed your project (or Visual
Studio), make sure to open your project. From the Project menu, select the Add Existing
Item… command. This brings up a dialog box that will let you add individual or groups of
files to the project. Add the provided starter files with the extensions .cpp and .lib.

9. If you need to create .cpp files of your own, select Add New Item… from the Project menu.
Select C++ File from the Template pane, and type the name of the file name (such as
mycode.cpp), and click OK. The file will be added and you will be taken to an empty editor
window, ready to type in your code. Be sure you provide the .cpp extension to the file name,
so that everything works. Since the add2.cpp file is the only source code file we'll be using
for the Add2Example project, we don't need to worry about this now, but be aware that you'll
be creating new .cpp files in future assignments.

10. To compile and link all the code in your project, select Rebuild Solution from the Build
menu.

11. To run the program with the debugger, set a breakpoint where you would first like the
program to stop by placing the cursor in the desired line of code and pressing F9. You should
see a red dot appear in the column to the left of the line of code indicating that line now
contains a breakpoint. (Note that pressing F9 on a line that already contains a breakpoint
will remove the breakpoint.) After inserting the breakpoint, select Start from the Debug
menu, or press F5. Of course, you can also just run your program without having it stop
anywhere by picking the Start command from the Debug menu without previously setting
any breakpoints.

In the screenshot below, I've placed a breakpoint on line 23, the last cout statement of the
program in my Add2Example project:
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Running your program

Writing a program and typing it in is hardly the end of the programming process. You need to
test your program and make sure that it works. When you pulled down the Debug menu and
selected Start, the system translated the source program into the internal language of the
machine. This process is called compiling. If you’ve done everything right, the compilation
process will finish in a few seconds, and you can test your program to see if it works. If it does,
awesome! If the program is for an assignment, print out a copy of the program and go on to the
next problem.

Chances are, however, that on your real assignments you won’t be quite so lucky. Somewhere in
typing in your program, you will have entered something incorrectly or made some other sort of
mistake. Perhaps your program does not work as intended, or, worse yet, does not even make it
through the compilation process. Making such errors seems to be an unavoidable part of
programming. When errors do occur, it is time to sit down, find them, and fix them. This is the
process of debugging.
 -6-

Debugging syntax errors

The errors that you are likely to encounter fall into two principal classes. The first class of errors
is syntax errors, which encompasses those cases in which you violate some linguistic rule of the
programming language. As the C++ compiler goes through your program to translate it into its
machine-language form, it has encountered some piece of the program that it can’t understand.
Such errors may be typographical (if, for example, you spell some word incorrectly) or they may
reflect a lack of understanding of the language rules.

When the compiler encounters a syntax error when you are trying build your program, it lists the
error in bottom pane of the VS application. You can then go back to your program, find the
error, and make the necessary correction. Save the file and try rebuilding it.

For example, let's say that I mistype line 22 in my add2.cpp file and issue the following
statement:

total = n1 + n3;

We don't have a variable named n3, so this should not compile. If you go ahead and rebuild the
project, the Output window should output something to this effect:
------ Rebuild All started: Project: Add2Example, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------

Deleting intermediate files and output files for project 'Add2Example', configuration
'Debug|Win32'.
Compiling...
add2.cpp
d:\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\Add2Example\add2.cpp(22) : error C2065: 'n3' :
undeclared identifier

Build log was saved at "file://d:\My Documents\Visual Studio

Projects\Add2Example\Debug\BuildLog.htm"
Add2Example - 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)

---------------------- Done ----------------------

Rebuild All: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 skipped

There's seems to be a lot parse here, but we can see that there's one error on line 22 of add2.cpp,
specifically that n3 is an undeclared identifier. While this example only has one syntax error, your
programs will probably have more (especially as they become larger and more complex…it's just
the nature of the beast,) and reading through the Output dialog will become tedious. This is where
the Task List window comes in. When you try to build a project and it fails due to syntax errors,
Visual Studio will list each error in the Task List window. Each line in the Task List window
represents one error, and each entry lists the description of the error, the file in which the error is
located, and on what line the error occurs in the file. By double-clicking on the error in the Task
List window, Visual Studio will open the corresponding file and jump to the line with the error,
placing, as shown in the screenshot below:
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Once the error is fixed and the project is rebuilt, it should compile without any errors. If, for
some reason, the Output and Task List windows are not displayed by default, you can bring
them up by going to the View menu, expanding the Other Windows option, and choosing either
Output or Task List (you can also hit Ctrl+Alt+O or Ctrl+Alt+K to bring up the respective
windows.)

Debugging logic errors

Eventually, you will get the last syntax errors out of your program, and you’ll be up and running.
This is when the fun begins. The most serious errors in a program are the ones the compiler
doesn’t catch—the errors that occur when your program is doing exactly what you told it to do,
only that what you told it to do wasn’t at all what you really wanted it to do. These are the
second class of errors, known as logic errors or, more commonly, bugs.

Since this is a larger topic, we have another handout devoted to debugging logic errors in Visual
Studio that you should read and become familiar with.