I want to copy a data file from a directory in my source tree to the directory of the linked app so it's available at runtime, on Windows only. There appear to be two suggested techniques: use a post target dependency to issue a DOS copy command (Including resource files in Qt Creator build directory) or use an install step (Copy a file to the build directory after compiling project with Qt), but I cannot make either work in the way I would like.
The former requires me to use qmake path variables to generate my source and destination paths, but they contain backslash path separators, which the DOS copy command cannot handle.
The install solution forces other users of my project to set up a post build step in Qt Creator before it will work (one per configuration, in fact) and I would like to avoid this, as I want to make my project work with a default Qt Creator installation.
Is there any way to do this apparently simple task that can be wholly defined in the .pro file for the project? For example, is there a way to expand qmake path variables in a platform specific way?
Though these commands run ONLY after the executable is ACTUALLY linked, this solution doesn't require an external batch file. Note: this a Windows-only solution:
From our .pri file:
win32 {
...
# Copy the appropriate dll files into the target destination directory.
QMAKE_TBB_LIBDIR = $$quote($$PWD/MySource/MyLibs/$${PLATFORM_NAME}/vc9)
QMAKE_POST_LINK = copy /y $${replace(QMAKE_TBB_LIBDIR, /, \\)}\\*.dll > $${replace($$quote(DESTDIR), /, \\)}
...
}
This places a command in the Makefile that copies all the .dll files in MyLibs/x64 or MyLibs/Win32 into the destination directory.
However, if the executable did not need to be linked, then the .dlls are NOT copied.
The post build batch file would not have this limitation.
Related
Currently I have to manually copy the platforms and imageformats plugin folders to the directory containing the .exe that MSVC compiled. This is very tedious as the output folders often get deleted if you're working on your CMakeLists.txt or changing compilation target.
Now qt_generate_deploy_app_script seems like an official Qt solution to solve this problem, but it does not work.
I have added the CMake bits to my CMakeLists.txt as stated
qt_generate_deploy_app_script(
TARGET HiveWE
FILENAME_VARIABLE deploy_script
NO_UNSUPPORTED_PLATFORM_ERROR
)
install(SCRIPT ${deploy_script})
I can see some generated deploy scripts appear under build\x64-RelWithDebInfo\.qt, but they do not seem to be run as no DLL folders get copied to where my .exe is.
Am I misinterpreting what qt_generate_deploy_app_script should do or is it simply broken?
If you want to Creat exe in windows From Qt project you should use windeployqt
To Deploy and create Exe output with QT in windows you should follow this way:
put your compiler path in your system path. for example, if you use mingw81_64, you should set it. something like Qt/tools/mingw81_64/bin
copy exe file that provides after building in release mode in one
folder and run mingw81_64 cmd (it has separate cmd) and cd to that
folder path
windeployqt app.exe
you are using Cmake So first create one release output and then use step 3.
This command will get all dll needs for your app and your exe will work .
if you use qml
windeployqt --qmldir (the path of its directory ) app.exe
and also see these youtube videos for more info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdSTgR0xJco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCXAgB6y8eA
I need to get path of folder with my qt in pro file.
I used QMAKE_QMAKE and everything worked.
But now I created a symbolic link to qmake in ~/.local/bin to make it easier to call qmake.
qmake-linux -> /home/andrei/Qt/Qt-v5.13.0/Linux/bin/qmake*
And now I ran into the problem that qmake, launched by a symbolic link, contains in the variable QMAKE_QMAKE not the path to the executable file, but the path to the symbolic link.
Info: creating stash file /home/andrei/worker/githubworker/github-worker/build/.qmake.stash
Project MESSAGE: QT_DIR = /home/andrei/.local/bin
Maybe it is important: I build qt from sources.
Maybe there are ways to get qmake paths or folders with qt?
The directory where the qmake executable is located can be retrieved with $$[QT_HOST_BINS]. This is a qmake property.
Call qmake -query to see a list of available properties.
In my projects folder i have a folder with the name translations where i have the translations files .ts.
What i want Qt/QMake to do on run is to put on the build folder the translation with the correspondent .qm files.
How can this be done?
You can run shell commands with qmake, using a custom target. Have a look at this answer here on SO.
In this case the command to invoke is lurelease, providing the right paths to your ts files and output directory.
Be aware custom commands are evaluated using the shell of the OS running qmake. That is cmd.exe on Windows and (likely) bash in several unix like systems. Therefore, a qmake script with custom commands is not platform agnostic.
I've got problem trying to specify the build directory (the directory that is to store all the files prior to copying them to the DESTDIR path).
I've got the following values in my .pro file:
DESTDIR = E:/Development/project/build/core/debug
OUT_PWD = E:/Development/project/build/core/debug
OBJECTS_DIR = $$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'm currently transferring a project built with qmake to CMake.
In the version with qmake, in the .pri file, there was
MOC_DIR = .moc/$${PLATFORM_NAME}
that permitted to produce the MOC temporary files in a given directory, keeping the sources clean. How to do the same thing with CMake?
Note: with CMake, I use the FindQt4.cmake package and the command QT4_WRAP_CPP().
As baysmith says, if your goal is to keep your source directory clean, the real solution is to use CMake's "out-of-source" builds feature. If you're on Windows, set "Where to build the binaries" to a new directory, different from the "Where is the source code" directory. If you're on Unix, it goes something like this:
cd <source directory>
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
By running CMake on a different directory, all of the build files will go into that directory, and your sources will stay clean. (Note: the build directory doesn't have to be inside the source directory. See the CMake wiki for more details.)
If "out-of-source" doesn't work for you, I was able to find one other option. Based on what I can tell from the Qt4Macros.cmake file installed with my CMake 2.8, it isn't accessible as a config parameter. Here's the relevant line:
SET(_moc ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${_current_MOC})
The workaround is to change all of your MOC include directives to specify the subfolder you'd like to build to.
#include "moc/mainwindow.moc"
After creating the moc directory inside my build directory, there were no problems building, and my MOC file was in the new directory.