Library linking in C++/Qt distribution

Question

I am developing a project in C++11, and am not the biggest expert in distrubition, compiling, packaging, etc. I use

• CMake 3.1.0
• Qt 5.4 (community edition)

Moreover, I want the program to work on both OS X and Windows. Therefore, my IDEs include:

• Apple Xcode 7
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2013

I am having troubles with the Windows build. As of now, I am not able to copy the executables to another computer, since the DLL-files are not included. If I copy all the DLL-files that I receive errors from, it simply says the program was not able to run. I have read a bit about static library linking, but am unsure whether this is what I need.

My CMakeLists.txt looks like this:

set(libsources file1.cpp file2.cpp)
set(exec1sources file3.cpp file4.cpp)
set(exec2sources file5.cpp file6.cpp)

# some qt commands

set(CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ..)
add_library(sharedlib ${libsources])
generate_export_header(sharedlib)
add_executable(exec1 ${exec1sources})
add_executable(exec2 ${exec2sources})

target_link_libraries(sharedlib Qt5::A Qt5::B)
target_link_libraries(exec1 Qt5::A Qt5::B sharedlib)
target_link_libraries(exec2 Qt5::A Qt5::C sharedlib)

install(TARGETS exec1 RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)
install(TARGETS exec2 RUNTIME DESTINATION bin)

As you can probably see, I want 2 executables, that each use some functionality from a shared library. And I want them working stand-alone.

I am likely not the first in the world to have this issue, but I was unable to find a similar thread on StackOverflow.

Answer 1

Have you tried windeployqt ? It will automatically copy all dependencies for you application. You can find it in the bin-folder of your Qt-Kit

For Mac, there is a similar tool, called macdeployqt .