RudeBuild is a bulk/unity C++ build tool for Visual Studio, developed by Martin Ecker. This is free, open source software under the zlib license.

RudeBuild is a non-intrusive bulk/unity C++ build tool that seamlessly integrates into Visual Studio 2017 and 2019. It can speed up build times of large C++ projects by a factor of 5 or more. RudeBuild also supports the use of IncrediBuild to speed up your build times even more.

RudeBuild comes in two flavors, as a command-line tool that works on Visual Studio solution files and as a Visual Studio extension complete with toolbar and menus.

When used as an extension the toolbar acts and looks just like the regular build toolbar but behind the scenes a bulk/unity build of C++ projects is triggered, automatically combining the .cpp files into unity files in a cache location and running devenv to build the modified solution/project. Using RudeBuild in this manner is transparent to the developer and requires no modification to the original source code or project files whatsoever given that the codebase is bulk/unity build-safe. Being bulk/unity-build safe means that there are no symbols with the same name in two different translation units. For example, it is invalid to have a static function called GetFileTime in both File1.cpp and File2.cpp.

Here are some screen shots of the RudeBuild menus and toolbar in Visual Studio:

RudeBuild Main Menu

RudeBuild Toolbar

RudeBuild Right-Click Menu

The command line version of RudeBuild is useful for automated builds, for example on build servers. A solution file, build configuration and optionally a project name must be specified on the command line.

RudeBuild is written in C# and requires the .NET framework 4.7.1 or higher.

RudeBuild is developed by Martin Ecker who can be contacted at the email address me@<thisdomain>.com, or @martin_ecker on Twitter, or via his website.