What does ":/" at the beginning of a filename passed to a Qt function mean?

[Tom asso]

What does it mean when a Qt function is passed a filename that begins with “:/”? E.g. I’m debugging a program that calls QOpenGLShader::compileSourceFile(QString &filename). My debugging shows that filename is “:/shaders/vertexShadow”; the function returns successfully indicating success. Yet I can’t find a filename containing “*vertexShadow*” in any likely place on my system. Can someone please explain how to interpret the “:/” prefix on that filename?
Thanks!

[SGaist]

Hi,

You are looking for the Qt resources system documentation.

[Tom asso]

@SGaist - Thanks! Ah, I see. In my case the qrc file specified :

<file alias="vertexShadow">shaders/shadow.vert</file>

So the Qt function was able to find "shaders/vertexShadow" since it's an alias of the actual file in shaders/shadow.vert.