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Sometimes with a complex header structure it happens some header is included, but it is hard to tell where from.

Is there some tool (depedency viewer?) or a method how to find the "inclusion stack" (which source / which header / which header / ...) is including one particular header file?

If the header file is included multiple times, finding first inclusion is sufficient, finding all inclusions is a welcome bonus.

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  • grep is not enough, because of indirect inclusions (this is what I meant by a complex header structure, perhaps I should be clearer). Commented Aug 9, 2010 at 9:17
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    Or use a cross-referencer (a.k.a. 'grep on steroids') such as OpenGrok. Although that still won't help you find indirect inclusions. Commented Aug 9, 2010 at 9:18
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    Doxygen can produce include graphs, but it can be pretty slow to parse very large codebases. Commented Aug 9, 2010 at 9:19
  • @Neil: grep won't help with headers that #include other headers. And if there is conditional inclusion, calling grep again on the results of the first grep will not give useful results. Commented Aug 9, 2010 at 9:33

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Someone has posted about it but I can't find this answer. So, In VS, go to your project properties. Choose Configuration Properties / C/C++ / Advanced / Show Includes and set "yes".

then compile you cpp file. It looks like this: cpp file:

#include <stdio.h> int main() { return 0; }

In the output window after compiling you will see:

1>------ Build started: Project: stlport_project, Configuration: Release Win32 ------ 1>Compiling... 1>stlport_project.cpp 1>Note: including file: D:\src\hrs_rt_059.00\HRS\modules\src\libs\src\external\stlport\5.1.7\stdio.h 1>Note: including file: D:\src\hrs_rt_059.00\HRS\modules\src\libs\src\external\stlport\5.1.7\stl/_prolog.h 1>Note: including file: D:\src\hrs_rt_059.00\HRS\modules\src\libs\src\external\stlport\5.1.7\stl/config/features.h

and so on

EDIT: reference to the same question Displaying the #include hierarchy for a C++ file in Visual Studio

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g++ -M stlport_project.cpp. Check it.
@SergeiKurenkov Do you have any idea how to do the same in QtCreator?
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The header you are searching for may not be directly included into the source file. You need to 'preprocess_only' the code. This can be done in g++ by using the -E option; I don't know enough about visual C to know what the exact specification is there but if you look in the help for 'preprocess' you may come up with something.

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A somewhat hacky approach (but one which should work on any platform/toolchain, without needing a separate dependency analyser) is simply to add a #error at the top of the included header - you will then get a compilation error from the first .cpp file which includes it.

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Nice and "portable" (no special tools needed) idea. A drawback is some headers (e.g. standard libraries) may be read only for you, or touching them can cause excessive rebuild as a result of them being frequently used.
@Suma: if you want to avoid modifying a standard header, put your own temporary copy with #error added early on the include path.
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Visual Studio /showIncludes

Directly in the Visual Studio I have found an option called /showIncludes - the output is textual only, but indented in a way which makes reading it quite easy:

Note: including file: /*..path.anonymized..*/\TCMalloc\windows\config.h Note: including file: /*..path.anonymized..*/\memalloc\tcmalloc\windows/port.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\windows.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\excpt.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\crtdefs.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\sal.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\vadefs.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\stdarg.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\windef.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\winnt.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\ctype.h Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\include\crtdefs.h

ProFactor Include Manager

There is also a VS add-in called Include Manager which seems to provide the needed functionality in a very nice visual way.

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