I have several Qt projects that are dependent upon a Qt library that I've developed.
The project files (.pro) for projects which use the library define the LIBS and PRE_TARGETDEPS paths. For example: -
PRE_TARGETDEPS += ../ProjectLibrary_Qt_5_2_1_clang_64bit-Debug/projectlibrary.dylib
LIBS += -L../ProjectLibrary_Qt_5_2_1_clang_64bit-Debug -lProjectLibrary
As you can see, there is a defined path to the linked library and they have been building with Shadow Builds, via Qt Creator. The file hierarchy is like this: -
Projects
ProjectLibrary_Qt_5_2_1_clang_64bit-Debug
ProjectLib.dylib (the built library)
DependentProject
DependentProject.pro
(dylib is an OSX extension, but it could equally be .lib for Windows, or .so for linux)
However, Jenkins creates a different folder structure:-
jobs
ProjectLib
workspace
Project.dylib
DependentProject
workspace
DependentProject.pro
Now there is an extra directory (workspace), which would need this reflected in the .pro file and the names of the folders are different.
Obviously, If I just call qmake on the .pro with a Jenkins build, the path to the library is going to be wrong.
So, do I need to create a separate .pro just to be able to reflect the paths when building with Jenkins, or is there another way to handle specifying the location of libraries in the project file, for Jenkins, without having to change the directory structures?
Solution 1) Based on your current build configration
Modify your .pro file like this :
isEmpty(PROJECT_PATH) {
PROJECT_PATH=../ProjectLibrary_Qt_5_2_1_clang_64bit-Debug
}
LIBS += -L$${PROJECT_PATH} -lProjectLibrary
Then in Jenkins , you should pass PROJECT_PATH={path to your project} to qmake
Solution 2)
Using git submodule to fetch ProjectLibrary as a part of your building project. Then you don't need to build the ProjectLibrary by Qt Creator manually.
Related
ANN: Approximate Nearest Neighbor Searching.
I am using QT creator in windows-10 64 bit system. I have compiled the source files from official site of ANN with visual studio 2015 and have successfully run the sample and test with the same environment. That is also the way how I get dll and lib files.
However, I tried to add the library to my QT creator but failed. I used both external library and internal library, even tried system library, but the problem of ' cannot open' always shows up. Meanwhile, I tried put all .h files, dll and lib file in the project's directory, still the same problem. All of other external libraries work fine after I configure them in my qmake file. Here is an example:
LIBS += -lopengl32
This is an internal lib I added (maybe system lib). And:
win32:CONFIG(release, debug|release): LIBS += -LC:/local/boost_1_63_0/lib64-msvc-14.0/ -lboost_filesystem-vc140-mt-gd-1_63
-llibboost_filesystem-vc140-mt-s-1_63
-llibboost_serialization-vc140-mt-s-1_63
-llibboost_system-vc140-mt-s-1_63
else:win32:CONFIG(debug, debug|release):
LIBS += -LC:/local/boost_1_63_0/lib64-msvc-14.0/
INCLUDEPATH += C:/local/boost_1_63_0
DEPENDPATH += C:/local/boost_1_63_0
As you can see, the two above libraries are working perfectly. Again, as I mentioned, my VS2015 can compile the sample by the library I put in the system directories. So how should I configure ANN lib in my QT?
I solved the main part of this problem by the suggestion made by the dude who commented above. Thanks a lot! The situation currently is that I can run the ANN.lib correctly in my QT creator with several other libraries (without compiling errors).
As I mentioned, I have already put all necessary files into the system directories, such as dll(system32), .lib(my visual studio 14/VC/lib), .h(my visual studio 14/VC/include). But that seemed not enough to run the ANN.lib successfully.
So I added a configuration of compilation, which is x64 release, to generate the newest dll and lib. Then I did the last step again, still not working. After that I put all files in single directory located in disk C and add this path to my qmake as external library. Now it works. Although I didn't delete the ones in my system's directories, it is running. Another thing I wonder to mention is that I also add this path to environment variables, so that I can just use += -lANN to run the lib without making it as external library. Both can work fine.
Question
a) How do we add library paths where the project should look for depended libraries in Qt Creator?
b) How are the settings in project >> Run >> Build Environment related to similar in .pro file? Does the environment variable listed there applies to .pro file as well (well they don't) so what are they exactly?
Context/Details:
Visual Studio has a various environment variables for folders where a project looks for include files, library files or executable files etc. This is rather confusing in Qt Creator and I havne't seen good documentation on it.
The only thing which is obvious is INCLUDEPATHvariable which points to the directories where to look for the include files (.h)
However how do I set the library paths, the path where it should look for dependent libraries/dlls etc? I can specify the exact library with LIBS variable in .pro file, there don't seem to equivalent of LIBPATH variable where it should look for other libraries if not found in current folder.
I have worked around this be adding library path the following way basically using LIBS variable but dropping the library file name and that seems to work and add the path but I don't see this documented anywhere.
LIBS += -L"$$_PRO_FILE_PWD_/Xerces/bin/"
But what makes things more interesting is the settings in Projects >> select 'Run' from current configuration and expand the Run Environment settings.
''
Here there is LIB variable and LIBPATH variable but there are clearly not .pro environment available. It also says here that these settings are local to user and saved in .pro.user file which perhaps suggest it's a different way to set but it doesn't say how to set them in .pro file but it does suggest to set them there if want to apply for all users!
Likewise there are DEPENDPATH AND VPATH and it is not really clearly what they are used for.
I don't have enough Rep to add comments to your question, So am adding my comment in form of answer. I am pretty new to Qt and have been developing Qt GUI application on Linux.
I set this LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable with the path to my Qt libraries. Am not sure how much it will be helpful to you since you are using visual studio on windows.
in Projects property go to Build Environment and add a variable with the libs path, example NAME_LIBPATH. So in the .pro file add the following:
# your lib configuration
LIBS += -L$$(NAME_LIBPATH) \
-llibname
I've got problem trying to specify the build directory (the directory that is to store all the files prior to copying them to the DESTDIR path).
I've got the following values in my .pro file:
DESTDIR = E:/Development/project/build/core/debug
OUT_PWD = E:/Development/project/build/core/debug
OBJECTS_DIR = $$DESTDIR/.obj
MOC_DIR = $$DESTDIR/.moc
RCC_DIR = $$DESTDIR/.qrc
UI_DIR = $$DESTDIR/.ui
Now, all the files eventually end up in that location, however during build, the compiler is always using the "E:/Development/build/MinGW_32bit-Debug/src/core" folder (note the missing project path). This is annoying, because I want to use the /Project/build directory as this location (which is not tracked in my git repo).
Ideally, I'd like this path to be: E:\Development\project\build\src\core\debug.
The reason I want to do this is that the build process has the same location to include the compiled libs from (it's a subdirs project).
I've had a look in the Tools > Options > Build & Run > General settings, and the default build directory is: build/build-%{CurrentProject:Name}-%{CurrentKit:FileSystemName}-%{CurrentBuild:Name}
I've had a look in my project.pro.user file, and found the following line:
<value type="QString" key="ProjectExplorer.BuildConfiguration.BuildDirectory">E:/Development/build/MinGW_32bit-Debug</value>
However I'm unable to change this value. If I edit this line in the file directly, as soon as I open Qt Creator again, the change has reverted back.
Is this a Qt Creator thing, or is it a qmake thing? Would I better off using a different build system such as CMake?
The build directory is "specified" by starting qmake or cmake in the build directory. There's no point to setting it in the .pro file itself.
Qt Creator stores the build directories for a project in the .user file. Any changes made to this file outside of Qt Creator, while the project is open in the Creator, will be lost. Creator loads the file when opening the project, or creates a new one if it doesn't exist.
When the Creator starts the build by invoking qmake or cmake, it starts that process in the build directory. That's also how you should be building the project manually from the command line.
Finally, it makes very little sense to override the destinations of the intermediate build results. They are somewhere within the build directory, and that's all that matters. You're not using these files directly for anything anyway.
The customary way to build a qmake project:
mkdir project-build
cd project-build
qmake ~/project-src
make -j
The build folder should not be within the source tree!
I've recently started keeping them in $TEMP / %TEMP%: manually purging the stale builds of all sort of test projects got old after a while :)
I want to build qt application that will gather all the necessary binaries for standalone execution on install.
I know that can be done in lines of:
QT_DIR=C:/Qt/4.8.4
dlls_to_move.files += $$DIR/bin/QtCore.dll
however that seems clumsy. Is there a way to retrieve Qt binary folder actually used, like project directory that can be retrieved with $$PWD?
From qmake Advanced Usage:
The special $$[...] operator can be used to access various configuration options that were set when Qt was built:
So I think you'd want to do this in your project file:
dlls_to_move.files += $$[QT_INSTALL_BINS]/QtCore.dll
I have a project that uses Qt. So I have "qmake" make my Makefile from the .pro file. But Qmake can also make that .pro file: qmake -project . This worked until I needed to add an external extra library to my project.
I get lots of hits on google that tell me to add LIBS += ... to my project file, but I want to tell qmake -project something that causes it to add it for me. In effect of course I'll be doing it myself, but I don't think that it's proper that I am editing the generated project file.
If for example I add files to the project directory, I'll have to recreate it and add in the library again, or I'll have to manually add the files to the (almost completely computer-generated) project file. I'm now using a script to auto-generate the project file, and then add in the LIBS += directive, but is there a proper way to do this?
When you are developing without the Qt Creator IDE, unless the IDE includes by itself some automatic utilities, you must edit manually the .pro configuration file.
The generated .pro file is a skeleton file which YOU must fill in with the libraries that you need, then the qmake system figures out the other dependencies and compiles your project. It is a essentially a much better version of pkg-config of gtk + Makefiles.
When you add more source and resource files to your project then manually you must add them to the .pro file.
Example:
QT += core gui
TARGET = qtcp1
TEMPLATE = app
SOURCES += main.cpp\
mainwindow.cpp \
miwidget1.cpp \
lcdrange.cpp
HEADERS += mainwindow.h \
miwidget1.h \
lcdrange.h
FORMS += mainwindow.u
Alternately, you can issue qmake -project over and over again, but this can cause some unforseen accidents, since it includes everything that is in the current directory at the time, including the pre-processed files for conversion to standard C++ from QT dialect. This intermediate files must be erased (cleaned), before the remaking the project and the next make or can lead to tricky problems.
Using the official and free QT Creator IDE takes away most of this burden by adding automatically the new data to the .pro file and cleaning loose ends. Some other IDEs like Code::BLocks and Codelite provide some facilities for QT, but not to the level of QT creator. Some prefer to edit the .pro themselves for custom reasons, other like more other styles of IDEs, like Eclipse.
You should test the waters and decide by yourself what fits best to your needs.
ReEdited, to clarify a few things.