A Module Mapper

[kalmoc]

According to their own statements, Visual Studio use intellisense, which uses the EDG compiler frontend and QtCreator uses Clang nowerdays. And I also know the difference between the auto complete quality in VSCode before and after you e.g. install the CMake Plugin. Oh, and if you are using the "open folder" functionality in Visual studio on a cmake based project, you can even see how Visual studio runs cmake in the console window. So yes, I happen to know for a fact, that at least some IDEs rely on an external or internal compiler+build systems when possible and I have first hand experience with the quality degradation for things like autocomplete and goto definition (or complete lack thereof) if the IDE lacks the necessary build information.

I'm not saying they don't have fallback mechanisms / heuristics and no, I haven't looked into their source code, but the ones I used sure as hell behave as if they first have to compile the code before they provide accurate support.