A Detailed Guide to Understanding CppDepend Analysis Inputs Documentation

This brief document explains the sources of input for CppDepend analysis. CppDepend utilizes Clang for parsing source files, and it requires the following inputs for code analysis:

• Source files.
• Include paths.
• Defines.
• forced includes.

In the C/C++ domain, numerous managed build systems exist, each with its unique approach to defining build specifications.

CppDepend offers built-in analysis for Visual Studio and Qt projects.

For other cases, two methods are provided:

• Using the Build Monitor: The Build Monitor's purpose is to capture all compilation and linking commands executed by your build system command, generating a build file specification containing all necessary data for CppDepend. This is the preferred method for describing your build specification. This is the recommended way to describe your build specification.
• The Project Maker tool enables you to describe your projects by specifying source files, include paths, and defines. This approach is not suitable for large projects, as manually providing all source files, include paths, and defines can be challenging. However, as detailed in the Project Maker documentation, this tool is highly appropriate for refining the external libraries used by your projects.