error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'FL/Fl.h': No such file or directory

Pablo picture Pablo · Oct 27, 2014 · Viewed 9.5k times · Source

First of all I'm still new here and therefore have no idea how to format the code so it looks neat in this question, I hope this is acceptable. I am following the programming principles and practice from Stroustrup. You might guess what the problem is...yes FLTK instalation. I have followed all the steps carefully to build the project in VS C++ 2013; pages 1204-1206. (I've done appendix C successfully, having to do with std_lib_facilities.h).

I was trying to build the following win32 project, as shown in the book:

#include <FL/Fl.h>
#include <FL/Fl_Box.h>
#include <FL/Fl_Window.h>

int main()
{
Fl_Window window(200, 200, "Window title");
Fl_Box box(0, 0, 200, 200, "Hey, I mean, Hello, World!");
window.show();
return Fl::run();
}

After building solution, I receive an error which reads: Error 1 error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'FL/Fl.h': No such file or directory

I have also followed the steps to copy across some lib files from the FLTK lib directory into c:\users\pablo\desktop\c++ course files\visual c++\win32project1\source.cpp which is the file I created for Visual Studio Express 2013. Can somebody help me? Where do I find this missing file? Is the problem perhaps having to do with the fact that the FLTK version is a bit outdated to be used in VS 2013? (When I compiled the FLTK library, I got some errors having to do with backup file and some warnings.) I have researched this long an hard. I found some questions having to do with this in this forum but not exactly related to the above mentioned problem. Thanks very much in advance.

PS Well, there was one question having to do with the same error. I've followed some of the tricks mentioned as an answer to the same question but to no avail.

("A neat trick you can do for these types of errors is to place your cursor into the file name of the #include statement and press Ctrl+Shift+G. It will fail and display a message box showing what the include paths are. The solution is to simply add additional include paths to the SDK by right clicking your project and going to Properties>C/C++>General and setting "Additional Include Directories".")

The other suggestion shown didn't work either: ("Make sure the include directory is not the FL directory, but its parent. The reason for this is when you say #include "FL/Fl.h", you're asking the compiler to step into a folder called FL to find Fl.h, which will reside in FL's parent. If you specify FL as an include directory then you need only say #include "Fl.h"").

Answer

user3353819 picture user3353819 · Oct 27, 2014

The other answer isn't remotely true (I have literally just compiled an FLTK program with all headers in the form #include <FL/xxx.H>). When you download FLTK you get a directory (say fltk-1.3.2) which has this structure

/fltk-1.3.2/
    FL/
    GL/
    src/
    lib/
    examples/
    + other stuff

The sub directory FL contains all the header files. As such if wherever you've placed the fltk-1.3.2 directory is located at \foo\ then you need to add \foo\fltk-1.3.2\ to your additional include headers field. Do be careful, you might have accidentally chosen the wrong directory (it happens) or you might have extracted the contents of a zipped version of the file into a nested version of itself meaning you might have something like \foo\fltk-1.3.2\fltk-1.3.2\ So have a look.

If it can't find the headers you almost certainly have got the additional include directories field looking in the wrong place or in the wrong format. Click on the drop down button, click edit and manually click the new folder button and navigate to it.

What you will find next is that you have to point the linker in the right direction. In the above the default place to install the library files (.lib static should be default for FLTK) so you need to add \foo\fltk-1.3.2\lib\ to configuration properties -> Linker -> General -> Additional library directories

THEN you need to link to the specific libraries. Since the linker now knows where to look you down need to specify the path, but just name them. To do so go to configuration properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional dependencies, click the drop down option, click edit and add on separate lines (and without these commas) fltkd.lib, fltkformsd.lib, fltkzlib.lib,wsock32.lib