“Post build event error”

Question

I am using Visual Studio 2008 to build my projects.

I often take existing sample code and edit it and toy around with it, as I am just learning and I'd like to advance my skill.. it's nice to have a template to work with.

That being said, I often get the build error "Post build event failed". This is often accompanied by a "could not find xxx.sbr file" or something. I do not know what an sbr file is, not a "post-build event". Re-building doesn't seem to help, and clearing all the files out before tying another build does not help either.

That being said, the executable still always gets built.

I was wondering:

1. What is a post build event and what are the implications/causes of its failure?

2. What is an sbr file? I tried researching this a bit.. a "Source Browse File"? This site seemed pretty informative: http://www.ehow.com/facts_5657521_file-extension-sbr_.html

The problem is, I don't understand why the compiler would complain about not finding this (isn't it supposed to MAKE this?) and what EXACTLY it does ("enables Microsoft Visual Studio to access your source code" - can't it do this anyway?)

Thanks!

R

Answer 1

post build event is just a command you can have visual studio run after it's finished - maybe to kick off tests or build an installer.
It's in properties->build events in the menu - right click on the project.

The SBR file is used by visual studio to browse sources and lookup which function is in which file. I have had problems where somehow it's internal list of dependencies gets screwed up and it always rebuilds one of them. Try a clean and rebuild, then try quitting visual studio and deleting the .ncb file