Visual Studio C / C++ standard flag

February 11, 2025

Visual Studio has distinct C / C++ language standard flags from most other compilers, including Intel oneAPI. The build system like CMake normally sets the compiler language standard flags by variables like CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD or target_compile_features command. Normally feature test macros should be used instead of checking the language standard version directly. In particular, MSVC _cplusplus macro requires the /Zc:__cplusplus flag to be set.

One way to determine what MSVC version added support for a particular C++ standard flag is to example CMake source code MSVC-CXX.cmake and MSVC-C.cmake.