WinUI3 : Undestanding Generated Files folder

Question

Hi,

I have been working on winui3 for some time now, I am trying to completely understand the WinUI3 build system and WinUI3 project structure.

I read "At build time, the generated code and your code are merged into a complete class definition and then compiled." Can you please help me understand when this "Generated files" folder is created and from where it and its content come?

Generated file folder contains a lot of files like sources, winrt, .g files, etc, I wanted to understand what is the purpose of each of them and how does it get generated, and understand what level of control we can get over this folder that we can control the files which are been generated.

It would be very helpful if you can point me to the right documentation and get a detailed understanding of it.

Thank you

Answer 1

Hello @Harshithraj1871 ,

Generated Files is a folder in WinUI3 C++ project.

You can see $(GeneratedFilesDir) in project properties -> C/C++ -> General -> Additional Include Directories.

With the default project settings, the included headers come from the Windows SDK, inside the folder %WindowsSdkDir%Include<WindowsTargetPlatformVersion>\cppwinrt\winrt. Visual Studio includes that path in its IncludePath macro. But there's no strict dependency on the Windows SDK, because your project (via the cppwinrt.exe tool) generates those same headers into your project's $(GeneratedFilesDir) folder. They'll be loaded from that folder if they can't be found elsewhere, or if you change your project settings.

Thank you.

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