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Using MS Visual Studio

Compiling and Debugging 4diac FORTE with MS Visual Studio

The following describes how to compile 4diac FORTE with win32-architecture using Visual Studio. In the installation tutorial (back) you find more details on building your own 4diac FORTE. Additionally, other tools are described there.

Attention: If you are using a Visual Studio version older then 2010 you might need to extend it with a stdint.h file. See for example here.

Building a MS Visual Studio Project for 4diac FORTE with CMake

In the installation tutorial, the steps on building a project with CMake are described in detail. To use Visual Studio, you need to however select the tool MS Visual Studio. The correct architecture is Win32.
  1. Open the CMake-GUI.
  2. Choose the source folder FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT.
  3. Choose desired destination folder. We recommend FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32.
  4. Press the Configure button and choose the version of Visual Studio that is used and native default compilers. Press the Finish button afterwards.
  5. For the option FORTE_ARCHITECTURE, select Win32. Other modules and configurations options can be set following the tutorial step Build a project with CMake.
  6. Press the Configure button, check red rows and repeat this until no row appears red. Afterwards, press the button Generate.

Compile 4diac FORTE with Visual Studio

  1. Open the generated 4diac FORTE project (.sln file) with Visual Studio in FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32. You can change from Debug to Release mode if you don't want to debug.
    Release Mode of Visual Studio
  2. Build 4diac FORTE afterwards by right-clicking on forte in the Solution Explorer window and then clicking Build. A file forte.exe should be generated in FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32/src/Release.
    Compile by right-clicking on forte in the Solution Explorer window, and then click Build


  1. If you want to Debug using Visual Studio, select the Debug mode and set 4diac FORTE as the main project.
    Set FORTE as main project in Visual Studio
  2. Finally, press F5 or click Debug → Start Debugging

Where to go from here?


Install Eclipse 4diac

After you installed all required tools, it's time to start using them. Take a look at the following page:

Step by step tutorial


Start Here page

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