MSVC2010 rebuilds every time, deletes *.obj on "DLL-link-fail"

[charleyb]

I use QMake to gen *.vcproj (from *.pro) to create DLLs that expose C++ classes to QML (Qt5.0.1/MSVC2010). The DLLs work.

However, I have two problems (they might be related):

When I "build", it ALWAYS recompiles everything in the DLL. (It's never "up-to-date".)

If I get a "link-fail" (for example, some input lib doesn't have a needed-function defined), MSVC will delete all the .*.obj and other intermediate files, requiring the next build to (unnecessarily) rebuild those intermediates. (The "link-success" will LEAVE the intermediate *.obj files, but the next build will force them to be regenerated anyway.) This means I can never do a "Project Only => Link Only" when I fix an "input-static-lib".

Both of these seem weird. And, they make me sad.

Note that since I "regenerate" the .vcproj each time, there are no "files-in-the-project" that do not exist on disk (which others observe as a cause to always-trigger-rebuild).

I've already tried the "silly-stuff" like re-installing service packs, clean builds, manually removing all intermediates/artifacts, reboot, etc.

From web searches (lots of reading for weeks to get around this), this might be related to:

• Each DLL has its own directory for its "intermedate-OBJs", but they all write to the same (shared-debug)-"output" folder for their .dll/.lib. (That should be fine, right?)

Failing a "proper-fix" (where MSVC realizes that things are up-to-date), is there a work-around where I can suppress the delete-intermediate-files so I can later force a mere "re-link", when I know that things should be fine? At present, I can't "Project Only => Link Only" because the intermediates get deleted. (How to stop MSVC from deleting the .OBJ files?)

[tzander]

Did you say you run qmake on every build to re-generate the project file?
That might be the reason this is happening. Only re-generate it when a file gets added or something else that causes your .pro file to change.

Another idea is that maybe some files (like your .pro) have a modification date in the future.

[charleyb]

@Thomas, I re-run qmake when I add/remove files (I manually update the .pro, then rerun qmake). I only mentioned that to clarify that there are no "files-in-project" that do not exist (because qmake is good about warning you if you reference a file that does not exist).

Modification date in the future ... good idea, I checked, it's not that. <sigh>

[tzander]

maybe give QtCreator a try? ;)