How can I run the MSVC preprocessor and compiler in two separate steps?

Question

I\'d like to run the Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler cl.exe without invoking the preprocessor. Is this possible? I thought that simply compiling preprocessed s

Answer 1

To my knowledge there is no way to run the compiler without the preprocessor (regardless of the fact that it doesn't do anything.

However seperating the 2 stages will obviously be slower as you are adding a write to file and then read back of that file. If it doesn't need to do those writes it can hold it in memory and you save a tonne of time waiting for the disk to be written to & read from.

ie Even if you could disable the pre-processor it would still be slower than running both stages simultaneously.