   Intellisense and C++
  I just started coding in C++ recently (I know a bit of Java and C#) and I know that in C#, Intellisense displays descriptions of functions (for example, if I start typing Console.Write I get "Writes the specified string value to the standard output stream".However, if I write std::cout, I get "std::ostream std::cout" (which to me, is like alien writing).So, my question is, is there any way to make Intellisense display something like C#? (I am using Visual Studio 2010 Professional)   
  Well, what's it's showing you there is correct.  std::ostream is returned from the function!  If you want it to show C# style function definitions, you need to use C#.   ;  It's displaying the correct thing as far as it can tell. std::cout is an instance of the std::ostream type. If you were to, for example, type "std::cout." (no quotes) you'd get member functions listed. Console is a class name in C#, so typing "Console." lists the static methods.There's no way to customize the Intellisense behavior to that extent. Some third-party plugins, like VAX, can augment the suggestions based on what you've previously typed, and sometimes that can show you "operator<<" but not always.   ;  Also remember that C++ intellisense is hard to do for VS (in fact it was often totally broken in earlier versions).  It has to do a partial compile in the background in order to generate its symbol database.  It's much better in 2010, but still not perfect.   ;  Intellisense is broken in some of my classes, and I've got no idea what causes it. And the right click - "go to definition" function is broken in those classes too. Hope they fix it in 2010 cause they didn't in 2008.   ;  He mentioned that it displays a description:"Writes the specified string value to the standard output stream"So i assume he wants Intellisense to display a similar description for std::cout.In that case, the description is taken from a comment above the function declaration, AFAIK. So if you declare/define a function like this:/* This is a description of what the function does */void someFunction(int var);Then VS will show a popup with this text:void someFunction(int var)This is a description of what the function doesIf the function does not have such a comment, then Intellisense cannot display it.Also, std::cout is not a function, it is a global variable.   ;  The NetBeans IDE has a very good auto-completion functionality. For libraries that come with documentation (e.g guichan) it shows info about object and object methods like VC# does. You can also create tags above your functions to display your own info as well.The downside is that you can't use microsoft's compiler for C++, you have to download either mingw32 or cygwin.   ;Quote:Original post by BurnhardAlso remember that C++ intellisense is hard to do for VS (in fact it was often totally broken in earlier versions).  It has to do a partial compile in the background in order to generate its symbol database.And how do you think the intellisense database is generated for C# code without compiling?   ;Quote:Original post by phresnelQuote:Original post by BurnhardAlso remember that C++ intellisense is hard to do for VS (in fact it was often totally broken in earlier versions).  It has to do a partial compile in the background in order to generate its symbol database.And how do you think the intellisense database is generated for C# code without compiling?To be fair, C# is a lot easier to parse than C++   ;Quote:Original post by ChaosEngineQuote:Original post by phresnelQuote:Original post by BurnhardAlso remember that C++ intellisense is hard to do for VS (in fact it was often totally broken in earlier versions).  It has to do a partial compile in the background in order to generate its symbol database.And how do you think the intellisense database is generated for C# code without compiling?To be fair, C# is a lot easier to parse than C++Indeed, but still, please excuse me, Burnhard was wrong, as every language must be [partially] compiled to reap information from it.Anyways, for the curious, the reason why C# is faster to parse than C++ is that C++ contains many highly ambiguous parts, that is, pieces of source code can be arithmetics, declarations or something else, depending on sometimes large context.   