Qt Test class in subdir project can't find ui_mainwindow.h from production subdir project

[PusRob]

Hi.

I have set a project up to contain two subdir projects: one normal project and one unit test project. I'm trying to create a unit test for the MainWindow class in the normal project by creating a MainWindowTest class in the test project. MainWindow now only contains a QPushButton myButton widget, and I'd like to test its existence and behaviour in MainWindowTest. An example test function:

void MainWindowTest::initTestCase()
{
    QVERIFY2(win.myButton, "myButton doesn't exist");
}

This is the test class:

#include <QtCore/QCoreApplication>

#include "../SomeProject/mainwindow.h"

class MainWindowTest : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT

public:
    MainWindowTest();
    ~MainWindowTest();

private slots:
    void initTestCase();
    void cleanupTestCase();
    void test_case1();

private:
    MainWindow win;
};

And this is the folder hierarchy:
--> SomeProject
-----> GUI_Tests
-----> SomeProject

In the header of MainWindow class I declared MainWindowTest as friend, so that I can access private elements (aka. the widgets) of it in the test class:

#include "ui_mainwindow.h"

class MainWindow : public QMainWindow, private Ui::MainWindow
{
    Q_OBJECT

    friend class MainWindowTest;
public:
    explicit MainWindow(QWidget *parent = nullptr);
};

The problem seems to be that the compiler cannot find the ui_mainwindow.h file as long as the GUI_Test subdir is part of the entire project:
~/SomeProject/SomeProject/mainwindow.h:5: error: ui_mainwindow.h: No such file or directory
#include "ui_mainwindow.h"

If on the other hand I remove the GUI_Test subdir in the main project .pro file (only SomeProject remains the sole project), everything seems to compile normally.

The question then arises: how can I make the GUI_Test subproject aware of the ui_mainwindow.h header that will only be generated later by UIC?

Here's what I tried so far to solve the issue:

1. add GUI_Tests.depends = SomeProject to the main .pro file --> didn't work
2. add #include ui_mainwindow.h to the test .cpp file --> didn't work
3. included all the source files of SomeProject to the Test Class's .pro file --> didn't work

As I understand this should be a simple thing to do right? Creating unit tests for your GUI classes and then running them with each compile. Am I missing something? Any suggestions? Should I approach my ultimate goal (writing tests and running them automatically) differently?

Thanks in advance.

[jsulm]

@PusRob said in Qt Test class in subdir project can't find ui_mainwindow.h from production subdir project:

GUI_Tests

Can you show its pro/pri file?
I think you need to add your ui file to FORMS there, just like in SomeProject.

[PusRob]

Hi.

This is the autogenerated .pro file of the GUI_test subdir project. I also added the ui file to forms, but still no luck:

QT += testlib
QT += gui
CONFIG += qt warn_on depend_includepath testcase

TEMPLATE = app

SOURCES +=  tst_mainwindowtest.cpp

FORMS += mainwindow.ui

I also tried with FORMS += ../SomeProject/mainwindow.ui, but still no luck.
I don't understand what else it needs. Any ideas?

EDIT: ok, if I add QT += widgets then the header gets generated, but now I get undefined reference errors.