How to generate or copy external dll to build or executable folder

Make it GREAT again

Hello,

It seems to be an old question, but I don't find a clear solution by far.
I have checked this https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qmake-environment-reference.html#installs
but don't solve my problem.
I have a very very simple project, with which few external libraries were built. Anyway, suppose I have only one external library in a test. The project can be built without an error. The executable file can be launched in Debug mode within QtCreator, but failed undoubtedly via a direct double-click in the build folder because of missing .dll files of external library. I just want to compile the project and meanwhile copy or generate those libraries added to the project into the executable or build directory.

Jakob Weiss

You can check out the deployment tool for windows, which should automatically collect the necessary Qt dlls for your application: https://doc.qt.io/Qt-5/windows-deployment.html

You should be able to use this as a custom build step in your build system if you really want to, or just do it once manually.

Make it GREAT again

Thanks, @Jakob-Weiss . I am using 5.4 and really don't want to update everything installed. I don't have a mingw version qtx.x-for-desktop so that I give the path of windeploy to the PATH variable. I m still stuck on this for almost one week. How stupid!!!

D:\Qt\Qt5.4.1\5.4\msvc2013_opengl\bin>path
PATH=D:\Qt\Qt5.4.1\5.4\msvc2013_opengl\bin

D:\Qt\Qt5.4.1\5.4\msvc2013_opengl\bin>windeployqt.exe \guis\build-AllNewDifroame
rGUI-Desktop_Qt_5_4_1_MSVC2013_OpenGL_32bit-Release\release
Unable to find dependent libraries of D:\Qt\Qt5.4.1\5.4\msvc2013_opengl\bin\Qt5D
ataVisualization.dll :Cannot open 'D:/Qt/Qt5.4.1/5.4/msvc2013_opengl/bin/Qt5Data
Visualization.dll':
D:\Qt\Qt5.4.1\5.4\msvc2013_opengl\bin>

I have also tried some other ways:

QtDV.command = copy $$QtDV_LIB_DIR/*.dll $$DESTDIR
        message($$QtDV.commands)
    QMAKE_POST_LINK = QtDV.command

This one gives me an syntex error like this

copy D:/GUIs/AllNewDifroamerGUI/../build-qtdatavis3d-Desktop_Qt_5_4_1_MSVC2013_OpenGL_32bit-Debug/lib/*d.dll

That is same to the one 10 years ago. https://forum.qt.io/topic/5159/copying-supporting-dll-to-destdir

BTW, message($$DESTDIR) shows nothing.

JKSH

@Make-it-GREAT-again said in How to generate or copy external dll to build or executable folder:

BTW, message($$DESTDIR) shows nothing

Did you define DESTDIR in your *.pro file? See https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qmake-variable-reference.html#destdir

For example, if you add the lineDESTDIR = $${PWD}/../bin in your pro file at D:\Projects\MyDll\src\mydll.pro, then when you build your DLL it will automatically be placed in D:\Projects\MyDll\bin\

I have checked this https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qmake-environment-reference.html#installs
but don't solve my problem.

To use the INSTALLS variable, run the make install command after building your DLL.