QT Creator / qmake project organization question

DL5EU

Dear all,

I have got a master project that is composed of several projects in two groups. My problem is that the dependencies are not always respected as I expect.

The structure in Qt Creator spans three levels and is as follows:

Master
Master.pro
+---Group1
|   Group1.pro
|   +---Project1
|   |   Project1.pro
|   +---Helper
|       Helper.pro
+---Group2
    Group2.pro
    +---Project1
    |   Project1.pro
    +---Helper
    |   Helper.pro
    +---Common
        Common.pro

Master.pro:
TEMPLATE = subdirs
SUBDIRS += \
    Group1 \
    Group2
Group1.depends = Group2

Group1.pro:
TEMPLATE = subdirs
SUBDIRS += \
    Project1 \
    Helper
Project1.depends = Helper

Project1.pro (in Group1):
Project1.depends = Helper

Helper.pro (in Group1):
TEMPLATE = lib
CONFIG += staticlib

Group2.pro:
TEMPLATE = subdirs
SUBDIRS += \
    Project1 \
    Helper \
    Common
Helper.depends = Common
Project1.depends = Helper Common

Project1.pro (in Group2):
TEMPLATE = lib
DEFINES += PROJECT1_LIBRARY
Project1.depends = Helper Common

Helper.pro (in Group2):
TEMPLATE = lib
CONFIG += staticlib
Helper.depends = Common

Common.pro:
TEMPLATE = lib
CONFIG += staticlib

My questions are:

Is it possible to have a project organization with more than two levels (e.g. main project, project groups and individual projects in the groups)?
When I change something in Group2/Common and build Group1/Project1, the changes are not taken into account although I have specified in Master.pro that Group1 depends on Group2 and in Group2.pro that Group2/Project1 depends on Group2/Common. Why is this so? Does the dependency check only work top -> down, i.e. when I build the master project?
Is it possible that the mixture of dynamic and static libraries causes the problem? I need both (dynamic libraries that can be called by other programs and static libraries with common methods, GUI elements and so on that I would like to link to the GUI applications)?
How would you organize the project that is currently composed of a master project and two groups, where one group contains the GUI applications and the other one the dynamic libraries (that can also be called from other programs)?

I am currently using Qt Creator 4.15.1 and Qt 5.15.2 (open source version) on Windows 10.

Thank you very much for your help!

Kind regards,

Ralf

SGaist

Hi,

Sure you can, Qt is a perfect example of that.
Can you show an example of project that shows that issue ? If you properly set all dependencies it should build in order.
Yes you can, do not forget to use PRE_TARGETDEPS when linking to your static libraries.
You can have one group that are the application which contains the bare minimum and then a second group which will contain all the libraries of your applications.

Anonymous_Banned275

I did experiment with Qt "SUB_DIR" and found the dependencies and level relations hard to manage. I think good knowledge of "make" / qmake and how it relates to (C) code is mandatory. And learning "make" was not part of my goal during my project.
I have ditched "SUB_DIRS" and found that I can manage the "subprojects" without it.
If you can - I would recommend to build sort of dummy skeleton / frame of all all your sub projects and then gradually replace then with real code.
73 es 55

DL5EU

Hello SGaist and AnneRanch,

thank you very much for the answers.

I had not specified PRE_TARGETDEPS but when I add this I get the error message "Multiple target patterns. Stop.". I will setup a small project structure (and not all at once) and make tests to see how it works exactly.

Kind regards,

Ralf

DL5EU

Dear all,

@SGaist said in QT Creator / qmake project organization question:

do not forget to use PRE_TARGETDEPS when linking to your static libraries.

I suppose this is a typical newbie problem. Not all things are done automagically :-) Of course I had not specified this variable and after adding it the problem was solved.

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards,

Ralf