Compiling Git with Visual Studio

Please note: this page describes how to compile Git's source code in Visual Studio 2015 or later.

Checking out vs/main

Warning

The vs/main branch and git.sln is deprecated. The current approach is to open the git folder in VS directly, refer to the README of the vs/main branch.

Git's source code (and hence also Git for Windows' source code) is usually built using GNU C and GNU Make in a Git for Windows SDK.

However, as of Git for Windows v2.11.0, a much more convenient way is available: by cloning https://github.com/git-for-windows/git and checking out the vs/main branch, you will automatically have project definitions ready to go with Visual Studio.

Simply open the git.sln file and build the solution. DO NOT upgrade Build Tools to v141 - it will not work. If you are using VS 2017 or later, you need to install Build Tools v140 manually.

Running the tests

When building Git in Visual Studio, you do not actually need a full-blown Git for Windows SDK. Simply install Git for Windows, make sure that the entire solution was built, open a Git Bash and run the tests in the t/ subdirectory.

Running an individual test

To test, say, the interactive rebase functionality, simply run the appropriate test (the file names are pretty self-explanatory):

sh t3404-rebase-interactive.sh

If you need much more verbose output, e.g. when a test is failing, use the -i -v -x options:

bash t3404-rebase-interactive.sh -i -v -x

Running the entire test suite

You can use the prove tool (which mostly works reliably, sometimes you will see that a test exited "dubiously" but running it again individually would not show any signs of failure...):

prove --timer --jobs 15 ./t[0-9]*.sh

Browsing the code

You can also use the Sourcetrail code browser (now open source) in conjunction with Visual Studio, see Sourcetrail code viewer page.