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Asked: 2026-06-19T00:47:13+00:00

I’m developing a C++ project in Visual Studio 2012 that uses driver code to

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I’m developing a C++ project in Visual Studio 2012 that uses driver code to interface with an open DMX box(ENTTEC DMX USB PRO). Thus far, I’ve been writing code and compiling as an EXE so I could use main() to run unit tests.

I want to port this over so that I have the device interface code that compiles down to a .DLL, then a separate source file that contains C++ code to compile an EXE that links to the DLL and makes calls to the functions to run the tests.

Essentially, when I go to debug, is there a way to setup Visual Studio 2012 to generate a .DLL and an .exe making calls to the .DLL and run the .exe automatically all in one step? I’m new to Visual Studio and find it quite confusing.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Yes. Setup two projects in your solution: One for your main code (generating a DLL) and one for your executable, where your unit tests reside. Then look under project dependencies (under the Project menu on VS2010, not sure about 2012) to make the EXE dependent on the DLL (that will make sure the EXE rebuilds/relinks when necessary).

    Right-click on the EXE project in the Solution Explorer and select Properties. There you can setup the includes/linker to get to your header/lib file, if necessary (it might not be necessary if you use LoadLibrary explicitly or something, but I’m guessing you’re not doing that).

    Now in the project settings for the EXE under build events, add a post-build event that runs your tests. Note that if your EXE returns something other than 0 from main(), VS can report that as an error in the build.

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