Building Qt 5.2.1 in latest Visual Studios

mwpowellhtx

Hello,

I am evaluating Qt 5.2.1 using the latest Visual Studios; at least VS2012 Update 4, and/or VC++ November 12 CTP, whichever gets me the latest possible compiler compliance support.

I will also try building with VS2013, which also has Update 1 available, for the same reason: latest possible compiler support.

I don't necessarily care about any QtCreator or anything like that. In fact, we'll likely be supporting and/or building through Visual Studio, if possible.

For what it's worth, as far as I know, for this application we don't care about UI parts, just the QtCore.

Has anyone build in these scenarios in the latest possible Qt versions?

I am hesitant to buy into any hype, so keep it straight. Of course I could also be a biased bigot, but that's okay.

Best regards,

Michael

JKSH

Hi,

Yes I regularly built Qt's latest source code from git using VS 2012, and then using VS 2013 when it came out.

My latest VS 2013 build was done 1 week ago.

The instructions are at http://qt-project.org/wiki/Building_Qt_5_from_Git

mwpowellhtx

Thanks. It's a good start. Ah, with the perpetual take on dependencies... (i.e. Perl, Python, etc).

Now, I won't need QtWebKit I don't think. We just want QtCore-only. This can be isolated from the graphical parts of Qt?

Thank ye...

sierdzio

Release packages (.zip for Windows) do not depend on Perl. If you skip webkit and qtquick, you also do not need Python.

mwpowellhtx

Thanks. That's fine, but we might like to build for: 1) multi-threaded, 2) dynamic and/or static DLL, etc. This all gets configured in the configure.sh?

sierdzio

Yes. Default is to use multiple threads and DLLs. Run configure --help to get more info.

mwpowellhtx

MINGW is a hard requirement? Or we can build with MSVC? i.e. XPLATFORM_MINGW=yes

mwpowellhtx

How to build without the WebKit or other unnecessary (for our purposes) parts? Those are not listed in the help.

sierdzio

[quote author="mwpowellhtx" date="1393690963"]MINGW is a hard requirement? Or we can build with MSVC? i.e. XPLATFORM_MINGW=yes[/quote]

JKSH has already told you, that MSVC is fine... I usually use MSVC 2010 and it works well.

No, MinGW is not needed. Actually, Qt will not work if you mix MSVC and MinGW.

[quote]How to build without the WebKit or other unnecessary (for our purposes) parts? Those are not listed in the help.[/quote]

"skip" command is your friend. Alternatively, you can just delete the module folder. It should still compile fine. Here is what I use to compile Qt on Windows:
@
configure -opensource -confirm-license -opengl desktop -mp -skip webkit -skip qtquick1 -nomake tests -nomake examples -prefix CD/qtbase
@

CD must be enclosed with pecentage signs (I can't put them here on forum; the system blocks it). Compilation takes 15 minutes on Linux, and about an hour on Windows (for a quad-core CPU with HT).

sierdzio

And to specify the compiler, you need to use "-platform" flag (and then just pass one of the mkspecs).

mwpowellhtx

Again, maybe I am bigoted re: configure, but where are the <parts> listed in the help? This is not a Qt problem, per se, but an "accepted convention", would-be mid-range end-users such as myself are simply expected to "know" what to nomake or skip. Anyhow, I cannot seem to see help again since the last failed attempt: command not found. So I need start fresh it seems... Oi. BTW, I am following the steps on the build page, but it's not very well outlined: Building Qt 5 from Git. I would like to build with JOM if I can somehow make that work, since I have 8 cores, to cut the time down some.

sierdzio

IIRC "parts" is more or less Qt modules.

mwpowellhtx

That's not what I was asking. I get that: parts == modules. What I was asking is: where are the list of parts? Generally, configure(s) do not list these, and it is annoying as hell.

mwpowellhtx

What would a configure look like: we're not doing any Qt UI, we want QtCore only. I tried even the earlier configure, and it chokes:

I:\Source\qt5>configure -opensource -confirm-license -opengl desktop -mp -skip webkit -skip qtquick1 -nomake tests -nomake examples -prefix CD/qtbase

cd qtbase
I:\Source\qt5\qtbase\configure.bat -top-level -opensource -confirm-license -opengl desktop -mp -skip webkit -skip qtquick1 -nomake tests -nomake examples -prefix CD/qtbase
Please wait while bootstrapping configure ...
<srcbase> = I:/Source/qt5/qtbase
<outbase> = I:/Source/qt5/qtbase

    cl -c -Yc -nologo -Zm200 -Zc:wchar_t -MT -W3 -GR -EHsc -w34100 -w34189 -DUNICODE -DQT_NO_CODECS -DQT_NO_TEXTCODEC -DQT_NO_UNICODETABLES -DQT_LITE_COMPONENT -DQT_NO_COMPRESS -DQT_NO_THREAD -DQT_NO_QOBJECT -DQT_NO_GEOM_VARIANT -D_CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE -DQT_BOOTSTRAPPED -DQT_BUILD_CONFIGURE -DCOMMERCIAL_VERSION -I"..\..\include" -I"..\..\include\QtCore" -I"..\..\include\QtCore\5.3.0" -I"..\..\include\QtCore\5.3.0\QtCore" -I"I:\Source\qt5\qtbase\tools\shared" -I"I:\Source\qt5\qtbase\mkspecs\win32-msvc2008" -Fpconfigure_pch.pch -Foconfigure_pch.obj -TP I:\Source\qt5\qtbase\tools\configure\configure_pch.h

NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin\cl.EXE"' : return code '0xc0000135'
Stop.

mwpowellhtx

I am thinking that my environment is confused, but I don't know if it's a configuration issues, the fact that I've got VS2010 and VS2012 and VS2013 all installed, or what.

I may give the installer a gander after all and see if it will at least get us by. Would be nice if I could get past this issue though.

sierdzio

Here is a list of all modules: "link":http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qtmodules.html.

Seems like you are using wrong mkspecs. Are you running that from your MSVC-enabled command line? To make the compiler choice specific, add this to configure:
@
-platform win32-msvc2013
@

(or msvc2012, depending on your choice). If you really, really just need QtCore, it will probably take some iterations to nail a working configure line, as it is a highly specific use case (most people compile whole Qt, some skip webkit and QtQuick1, but almost nobody goes further :P).

I'll give you 2 ways to do it, but there are many more.

remove all folders from your Qt dir, except for qtbase, qttools and qtdoc, then run configure as usual. This will still not be ideal for you: modules like QtNetwork are inside qtbase (but it is a small module, compiles in seconds)

keep patiently removing all Qt modules with -skip flag...

sierdzio

OK, I'll throw in the third way: run the configure line as usual, but then don't run the global Makefile. Instead, cd into qtbase and run nmake (or jom) there. This should only build QtCore, QtNetwork, and other base modules.

mwpowellhtx

As long as I can identify them (more or less), yes. Thanks for the tips (and the patience!)...

mwpowellhtx

I added -platform win32-mscv2012, and same error. Yes, I need an MSVC command line?

mwpowellhtx

I'm just reading the notes: http://qt-project.org/wiki/Building_Qt_5_from_Git

And nowhere after configure does it say to CD qtbase when using jom, or any of the other options. Or maybe I am reading it wrong?

Oh! Bit of a clue: the prefix is where the stuff lands, so that's why...

I am spoiled by IDEs, workspace and project files, which are a dialect all their own...