[feature] Expose `vs_ide_version()` in conan.tools.microsoft

• I’ve read the CONTRIBUTING guide.

vs_ide_version in visual.py is useful for recipes aiming to support both legacy compiler=Visual Studio and new compiler=msvc during conan v2 transition.

I’ve started to use it in few conan-center recipes with from conan.tools.microsoft.visual import vs_ide_version, but it would make sense to import this function the same way than is_msvc, is_msvc_static_runtime etc

In grpc recipe for example we could write something like this:

    def validate(self):
        if is_msvc(self) and tools.Version(vs_ide_version(self)) < "14":
            raise ConanInvalidConfiguration("gRPC can only be built with Visual Studio 2015 or higher.")

[SpaceIm]

Actually, check_min_vs is too specific, it doesn’t help when we want to test versions without raising. vs_ide_version is more versatile.

How to translate something like this?

if self.settings.compiler == "Visual Studio":
    msvc_folder = "vs2017" if Version(self.settings.compiler) >= "15" else "vs2013"
    [...]

Currently:

if is_msvc(self):
    if (self.settings.compiler == "Visual Studio" and Version(self.settings.compiler) >= "15") or \
       (self.settings.compiler == "msvc" and Version(self.settings.compiler) >= "191"):
        msvc_folder = "vs2017"
    else:
        msvc_folder = "vs2013"
    [...]

I would prefer

if is_msvc(self):
    msvc_folder = "vs2017" if vs_ide_version(self) >= "15" else "vs2013"
    [...]

Even when we want to raise, check_min_vs is not used in conan-center because usually we have more generic logic to handle all compilers min compatible version in a dictionary.

[SpaceIm]

thanks