Thu
17
Aug 2017

When you code in C++ using Visual Studio, you may meet following problem: Your code uses preprocessor directives that depend on some macro that is defined elsewhere, e.g. in one of CPP files including the header file you write, and so IntelliSense gets lost and stops working, or even completely grays out that part of your code as inactive. For example:

// Some code...

#ifdef EXTERNALLY_DEFINED_MACRO

// Some code where IntelliSense stops working...

#endif

I just found a solution to that. It turns out there is a special macro predefined when code is processed by Visual Studio IntelliSense. It's called just __INTELLISENSE__. By using it, you can change parts of your code as seen by IntelliSense parser, e.g. define some macros, without influencing logic seen by the compiler. For example:

#ifdef __INTELLISENSE__
#define EXTERNALLY_DEFINED_MACRO
#endif

// Some code...

#ifdef EXTERNALLY_DEFINED_MACRO

// Some more code where IntelliSense is working again...

#endif

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