comet-build

name	comet-build
description	Build the Comet mass spectrometry search engine from source. Use when building, rebuilding, or diagnosing compile/link errors in the Comet project (Comet.sln).

Comet Build

Full solution build (Release x64)

& "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64\MSBuild.exe" `
  "C:\Work\Comet-master\Comet.sln" /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64 /m /nologo /v:minimal

Show only errors and C4-level warnings:

... 2>&1 | Where-Object { $_ -match "error|warning C4" }

Building from WSL (Bash tool)

MSBuild.exe is directly invocable from the Bash tool in a WSL session on this machine (no powershell.exe/cmd.exe wrapper needed) — Windows interop lets WSL bash exec .exe paths under /mnt/c/... directly:

"/mnt/c/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/Community/MSBuild/Current/Bin/amd64/MSBuild.exe" \
  "/mnt/c/Work/Comet-master/Comet.sln" /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64 /m /nologo /v:minimal

Use forward-slash /mnt/c/... paths (not C:\...) when invoking from bash. This means a WSL-based Claude Code session can build and verify the Windows/VS side of a change directly, not just the Linux make build — don't assume Windows-only code (e.g. /clr files, CometWrapper, RealtimeSearch) is unverifiable just because the working shell is bash.

After building: copy the wrapper DLL

CometWrapper.dll must be manually copied after each build for RealtimeSearch.exe to pick it up:

Copy-Item "C:\Work\Comet-master\x64\Release\CometWrapper.dll" `
          "C:\Work\Comet-master\RealtimeSearch\bin\x64\Release\CometWrapper.dll" -Force

Build targets and outputs

Project	Output
MSToolkit	x64\Release\MSToolkit.lib
CometSearch	x64\Release\CometSearch.lib
CometWrapper	x64\Release\CometWrapper.dll
Comet	x64\Release\Comet.exe
RealtimeSearch	RealtimeSearch\bin\x64\Release\RealtimeSearch.exe

To rebuild only CometSearch + CometWrapper (fastest for C++ changes):

... /t:CometSearch`;CometWrapper

RTS_TIMING instrumentation flag

Location: CometSearch\CometSearch.vcxproj, Release config <PreprocessorDefinitions>.

• RTS_TIMING_OFF — production build (default)
• RTS_TIMING — enables per-spectrum printf("TIMING\t...") in DoSingleSpectrumSearchMultiResults

Always disable before benchmarking. With 40k spectra and 20 threads, the stdout contention from printf adds ~8 seconds to the search time and makes Hz numbers meaningless for comparison.

C# language version

RealtimeSearch\RealtimeSearch.csproj targets .NET Framework 4.7.2. Both Debug|x64 and Release|x64 configurations have <LangVersion>7.3</LangVersion>. Do not use C# 8.0+ syntax (e.g., using declarations without braces) without bumping this.

Linux / macOS build

make          # full build
make cclean   # clean CometSearch only (fast)
make clean    # full clean