Pretty-Cl

Readable, formatted output for the MSVC compiler (and linker - cl.exe)

Why?

You're compiling you programs with MSVC's cl.exe. The output is turse, unstructured and hard to read. It's not the end of the world, but you deserve better.

What?

Pretty-Cl is a small Powershell function that wraps the cl.exe call. It adds some basic colors and (emoji) icons to the cl.exe output. You can probably write you own version without much effort. But you might not enjoy writing Powershell or Regex expressions.

Demo

Requirements

• Powershell 7
• (Windows Terminal) For Emoji support. Coloring still works in the regular Powershell 7 console.

Installation

Install as a Powershell module.

1. Locate your module folders

   • You have multiple module folders
   • To list these folders, type $env:PSModulePath into a powershell session

2. Pull this directory to one of your Modules folders

   • Choose any one of your module folders
   • In the end, you're looking to place the .ps1m file as follows: {Module folder}/{PrettyCL folder}/{ps1m file}

3. Restart Powershell

   • You should now be able to call the function Pretty-Cl