How to debug CA Gen 8.6 Windows Build Tool errors related to Microsoft Visual Studio

Products

• Gen
• Gen - Workstation Toolset

Issue/Introduction

This article covers how to capture more information from the CA Gen 8.6 Windows Build Tool when errors related to the Microsoft Visual Studio setup occur.
For example errors like "RC1015: cannot open include file" or other "file not found" type errors.

Environment

Release: 8.6 Complete (WKS86200/SO09618 installed)
Component: CA Gen Build Tool

Resolution

The CA Gen 8.6 Windows Build Tool (BT) scripts set up the Visual Studio environment automatically and no manual setting up any environment variables for INCLUDE, LIB, PATH etc. should be required.

The BT scripts (directory "%GEN86%\Gen\bt\scripts") include a file named callvsvars.scr which gets called by all C, C#, COM and .NET related scripts.
The callvsvars.scr calls "%GEN86%\Gen\vssetup.bat" with the BT profile token value OPT.VSVERSION to setup the appropriate VS environment variables VSINSTALLDIR and VSnnnCOMNTOOLS (where nnn is the VS version).
Then callvsvars.scr calls "%VSnnnCOMNTOOLS%vsDevCmd.bat" to set up the required INCLUDE, LIB, PATH environment variables for Visual Studio to function correctly for the Gen application build being executed.

In case of problems the OPT.VSVERSION and environment variable values can be output to the .out file generated by the BT during an application build.
Take a backup of the installed callvsvars.scr file and then add these lines to the bottom of the file:

===
echo OPT.VSVERSION = "{OPT.VSVERSION}"
echo.
echo INCLUDE = "%INCLUDE%"
echo.
echo LIB = "%LIB%"
echo.
echo PATH ="%PATH%"
===

The resulting data in the .out file can then be used for self-diagnosis of any problems or passed to Broadcom Technical Support if a support case needs to be created to receive further assistance.