Using Emacs as an IDE

Question

Currently my workflow with Emacs when I am coding in C or C++ involves three windows. The largest on the right contains the file I am working with. The left is split into

Answer 1

There's a TFS.el for emacs integration into Microsoft TFS. It works with any TFS, including the TFS that runs Codeplex.com.

Basic steps to setup:

1. Place tfs.el in your load-path.

2. In your .emacs file:

   (require 'tfs)
   (setq tfs/tf-exe  "c:\\vs2008\\common7\\ide\\tf.exe")
   (setq tfs/login "/login:domain\\userid,password")
         -or-
   (setq tfs/login (getenv "TFSLOGIN"))  ;; if you have this set
   

3. also in your .emacs file, set local or global key bindings for tfs commands. like so:

   (global-set-key  "\C-xvo" 'tfs/checkout)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvi" 'tfs/checkin)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvp" 'tfs/properties)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvr" 'tfs/rename)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvg" 'tfs/get)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvh" 'tfs/history)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvu" 'tfs/undo)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvd" 'tfs/diff)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xv-" 'tfs/delete)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xv+" 'tfs/add)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvs" 'tfs/status)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xva" 'tfs/annotate)
   (global-set-key  "\C-xvw" 'tfs/workitem)
   

Answer 2

compile, next-error, and previous-error are all pretty important commands for C++ development in Emacs (works great on grep output too). Etags, visit-tags-table, and find-tag are important as well. completion.el is one of the great unsung hacks of the 20th century, and can speed up your C++ hacking by an order of magnitude. Oh and let's not forget ediff.

I've yet to learn how to use version control without visiting a shell, but now that I'm running commits so much more frequently (with git) I will probably have to.

Answer 3

I use emacs on Windows. the compile module is nice, but I wanted compile to be smarter about the compile command line it suggests. It's possible to use "File Variables" to specify compile-command, but I wanted something a little smarter than that. So I wrote a little function to help out. It guesses the compile command to use, to prompt the user with, when running compile.

The guess function looks for a vbproj or csproj or sln file, and if found, it suggests msbuild. Then it looks at the buffer file name, and depending on that, suggests different things. A .wxs file means it's a WIX project, and you likely want to build an MSI, so the guess logic suggests an nmake command for the MSI. If it's a Javascript module, then the suggestion is to run jslint-for-wsh.js to lint the .js file. As a fallback, it suggests nmake.

The code I use looks like this:

(defun cheeso-guess-compile-command ()
  "set `compile-command' intelligently depending on the
current buffer, or the contents of the current directory."
  (interactive)
  (set (make-local-variable 'compile-command)
       (cond
        ((or (file-expand-wildcards "*.csproj" t)
             (file-expand-wildcards "*.vcproj" t)
             (file-expand-wildcards "*.vbproj" t)
             (file-expand-wildcards "*.shfbproj" t)
             (file-expand-wildcards "*.sln" t))
         "msbuild ")

        ;; sometimes, not sure why, the buffer-file-name is
        ;; not set.  Can use it only if set.
        (buffer-file-name
         (let ((filename (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name)))
           (cond

            ;; editing a .wxs (WIX Soluition) file
            ((string-equal (substring buffer-file-name -4) ".wxs")
             (concat "nmake "
                     ;; (substring buffer-file-name 0 -4) ;; includes full path
                     (file-name-sans-extension filename)
                     ".msi" ))

            ;; a javascript file - run jslint
            ((string-equal (substring buffer-file-name -3) ".js")
             (concat (getenv "windir")
                     "\\system32\\cscript.exe c:\\users\\cheeso\\bin\\jslint-for-wsh.js "
                     filename))

            ;; something else - do a typical .exe build
            (t
             (concat "nmake "
                     (file-name-sans-extension filename)
                     ".exe")))))
        (t
         "nmake "))))


(defun cheeso-invoke-compile-interactively ()
  "fn to wrap the `compile' function.  This simply
checks to see if `compile-command' has been previously set, and
if not, invokes `cheeso-guess-compile-command' to set the value.
Then it invokes the `compile' function, interactively."
  (interactive)
  (cond
   ((not (boundp 'cheeso-local-compile-command-has-been-set))
    (cheeso-guess-compile-command)
    (set (make-local-variable 'cheeso-local-compile-command-has-been-set) t)))
  ;; local compile command has now been set
  (call-interactively 'compile))

;; in lieu of binding to `compile', bind to my monkeypatched function
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-e"  'cheeso-invoke-compile-interactively)

I tried doing this as "before advice" for the compile function but couldn't get it to work satisfactorily. So I defined a new function and bound it to the same keystroke combination I have been using for compile.

---

EDIT there is now "smarter-compile.el" which takes this idea one step further.

Answer 4

Instead of running a make command in the shell window, have you tried M-x compile? It will run your make command, display errors, and in many cases make it very easy to jump to the line of code that caused the error if the output includes filenames and line numbers.

If you're a fan of IDEs, you might also want to look at emacs' speedbar package (M-x speedbar). And, if you haven't already, learn about how to use tags tables to navigate your code.

Answer 5

You can find detailed description of emacs & version control integration on my site. I'm also working on article about using Emacs as Development Environment for many languages - C/C++, Java, Perl, Lisp/Scheme, Erlang, etc...

Answer 6

You'll have to be specific as to what you mean by "the rest". Except for the object inspector (that I"m aware of), emacs does all the above quite easily:

• editor (obvious)
• compiler - just run M-x compile and enter your compile command. From there on, you can just M-x compile and use the default. Emacs will capture C/C++ compiler errors (works best with GCC) and help you navigate to lines with warnings or errors.
• Debugging - similarly, when you want to debug, type M-x gdb and it will create a gdb buffer with special bindings
• Documentation Lookup - emacs has excellent CScope bindings for code navigation. For other documentation: Emacs also has a manpage reader, and for everything else, there's the web and books.
• version control - there are lots of Emacs bindings for various VCS backends (CVS, SCCS, RCS, SVN, GIT all come to mind)

Edit: I realize my answer about documentation lookup really pertained to code navigation. Here's some more to-the-point info:

• Looking up manpages, info manuals, and Elisp documentation from within emacs
• Looking up Python documentation from within Emacs.

Google searching will no doubt reveal further examples.

As the second link shows, looking up functions (and whatever) in other documentation can be done, even if not supported out of the box.