Qt qmake and DISTFILES

Question

So I am learning to program in OpenGL 3.3 and I am using qtcreator as my IDE with qmake as the compiler. Everything is fine except I have to read 2 files (fragmentshader.frag and vertexshader.vert) using ifstream. I have included those 2 files in the ".pro" like this:

TEMPLATE = app
CONFIG += console c++11
CONFIG -= app_bundle
CONFIG -= qt

SOURCES += main.cpp \
shaders.cpp

LIBS += -lGLEW -lglfw -lGL -lX11 -lpthread -lXrandr -lXi

DISTFILES += \
vertexshader.vert \
fragmentshader.frag

HEADERS += \
shaders.h

and in the code I try to directly read "vertexshader.vert" and "fragmentshader.frag".

My question is: How do I include these files in my application without having to specify an absolute path?

Answer 1

I had the same problem, it comes from the fact Qt is running files from another directory (by default from the build one).

The Fix

So you have two options:

• change the Working directory in Projects->Build & Run->Run to %{sourceDir} .
• change the Build directory in Projects->Build & Run->Build to . or leave it blank.

Explanations

• The first option run your program (.exe on Windows) from the sourceDir, where your project sits, so path will remain the same relatively.
• The second option place all your build files (ie: Makefile, *.o and ".exe") in your project directory (they won't appear in the project view unless your Add them), I prefer this way because now your project directory contains everything related to it.

Choose the one you prefer the most, hope it helps.