vs2sh.sh

The vs2sh.sh is a shell script used to create a simple shell script which sets environment variables required to use Visual Studio command-line tools such as cl.exe and link.exe.

The puropse of this script is to remove burden of setting variables such as PATH, INCLUDE and LIB from the user.

By default, vs2sh.sh will generate script named vs.sh which you can source from shell to setup the environment.

. vs.sh

The primary intended use of the resulting environment is to allow use Visual Studio command-line tools with GNU Autotools (Autoconf, Automake and Libtool).

some/src/dir/configure \
  CC='cl.exe -nologo' \
  CFLAGS='-MD ...' \
  CXX='cl.exe -nologo' \
  CXXFLAGS='-MD ...' \
  LD='link.exe -nologo' \
  AR='lib.exe' \
  RANLIB=: \
  NM='dumpbin.exe -nologo -symbols'

Usually, you would use one of the following environments:

• MinGW
• Cygwin
• Msys2

The vs2sh.sh may also be run from Git for Windows.
Keep in mind that Git fo Windows does not provide make utility required to use GNU Autotools.

It may also be used with CMake and Meson build system installed from Msys2.

Invokation

This section describes how to use vs2sh.sh.

Environment Files

Before you can run vs2sh.sh you need to generate input files to which we will refer as environment files.

Those environment files are plain text files containing output from env when it is run without any options.
The env utility is part of GNU coreutils which is installed with environments listed above.

You need to generate two of those:

• user environment file
• development environment file

The user environment file is generated from either Command Prompt or PowerShell.

The development environment file is generated from either Developer Command Prompt or Developer PowerShell.

The Developer Command Prompt and Developer PowerShell are located in Start Menu entry of your Visual Studio installation.

Running vs2sh.sh

Simple invokation looks like

./vs2sh.sh -u USER-ENV-FILE -d DEV-ENV-FILE

Available options may be listed with

./vs2sh.sh --help
# or
./vs2sh.sh -h

The vs2sh.sh supports following options:

Long Option	Short Option	Description
--user-env=FILENAME	-u	Specify user environment file
--dev-env=FILENAME	-d	Specify development environment file
--output=FILENAME	-o	Specify output file (default is vs.sh)
--locale=LOCALE	-l	Specify locale to use (default is C)
--fast	-f	Skip Variable Substitution
--[no-]cygpath		Whether to use cygpath in the output file

Following options are described in Tools and SDK Version:

• --sdk=VERSION
• --vctools=VERSION
• --vcredist=VERSION

Following options are described in Auxiliary Output:

• --dump
• --dump-only
• --dump-dir=DIRNAME

Features

This section describes features supported by vs2sh.sh.

Using cygpath

By default, vs2sh.sh will use cygpath in generate output file if it is installed when the script is run. This allows generated output file to be usable from both Cygwin and Msys2.

The cygpath is installed by default with Cygwin and Git for Windows. In Msys2 it may be installed manually:

pacman -S cygpath

The --cygpath option forces use of cygpath in the generated file.
The --no-cygpath option prohibits use of cygpath in generated the file.

Variable Substitution

The vs2sh.sh tries to generate its output in a way that variables set earlier may be used as part of variables set later.

This, for example, allows you modify variables like VCToolsVersion and WindowsSDKVersion to change version of Visual C tools and Windows SDK to use.

However, since this process is time-consuming, you may disable this behavior with --fast and -f options.

Tools and SDK Version

By default, both Developer Command Prompt and Developer PowerShell use latest installed versions of Visual C Tools and Windows SDK.

Following options tell vs2sh.sh to try generate output file to use different versions:

Option	Description
--sdk=VERSION	Use specified VERSION of Windows SDK
--vctools=VERSION	Use specified VERSION of Visual C Tools
--vcredist=VERSION	Use specified VERSION of Visual C Redistributables

NOTE: --vcredist only affects value of VCToolsRedistDir.
I am unsure whether it has any effect outside of Visual Studio.

The vs2sh.sh does it by manipulating variables in the generated output file. This may not work for older version of Visual Studio.

You may set which versions of Windows SDK and Visual C Tools must be used when starting Developer PowerShell/Command Prompt. Please refer to Microsoft Docs for details.

Auxiliary Output

The vs2sh.sh may also produce list of installed versions of Windows SDKs, Visual C Tools and Visual C Redistributables.

Option	Description
--dump	Produce auxiliary output in addition to normal output
--dump-only	Produce auxiliary output only
--dump-dir=DIRNAME	Specify directory where to write auxiliary output

Using either --dump or --dump-only will result in three extra files:

• SKD.list: list of installed Windows SDKs
• VCTOOLS.list: list of installed Visual C Tools
• VCREDIST.list: list of installed Visual C Redistributables

NOTE: it is very likely that VCTOOLS.list and VCREDIST.list will contain the same values.

These files are written to the current directory by default. You may specify different directory with --dump-dir, which must exist.

This feature is mostly useful to get list of valid values for --sdk, --vctools and --vcredist options.

License

The vs2sh.sh is licensed under terms of GNU General Public License Version 3.
See COPYING for details.