Compiling Qt 5.7 applications without Xcode

[FamilyHistorian]

Is it possible to build Qt 5.7 applications without using xcode command line tools? I am using clang 3.9 to build and cmake to configure my makefiles. Does this give me everything I need or does Xcode provide some needed libraries not included otherwise?

Thanks in advance
Paul

[ambershark]

@FamilyHistorian As long as your installation of clang installed all the required apple libraries you should be fine. I've never tried it without having a full install of xcode though.

I don't ever use xcode but I make sure it's installed so all the /Developer stuff is there.

[SGaist]

Hi,

How did you install clang ?

Note that Qt officially only supports the compilers provided by Apple.

[FamilyHistorian]

I downloaded and extracted ( tar.gz ) the clang package as a binary distribution into /usr/local.
I have /usr/local in my path before /usr/bin. Also gcc, g++ and cc all point to clang 3.9.
I do have xcode installed but I am going to clean my hard drive to free up some space and If I don't need xcode it may as well go :) So far, clang compiles Qt 5.7 without any issues. Again I was just wondering what, if anything, xcode contributed to the build. clang will generate Apple app bundles. It's just a command line option.

Thanks
Paul

[SGaist]

Apple provide their custom version of clang (I don't remember the specifics of the differences with the official release, sorry). It also provides the debugger and macOS,iOS,tvOS SDKs.

[ambershark]

@FamilyHistorian I would hide the XCode stuff, move the directory or what I like to do is just change permissions.

sudo chmod 000 /Applications/Xcode.app

Now try your build again and if it tries to use anything in Xcode (since xcode doesn't use /Developer any more but instead uses /Applications/Xcode.app/Developer) then it should fail with a permissions error.

If not and your build works you could probably safely remove Xcode.

Oh and in case you aren't good with unix commands, restoring your permissions sudo chmod 755 /Applications/Xcode.app. :)

I'm betting you need Xcode though.

[FamilyHistorian]

@ambershark
First, Linux Rocks!, Mac follows.
Windoze ..
.
.
.
You are correct. the build process needs xcrun, apparently to compile a simple test program before configuring my application so I do need Xcode.
Thanks for your help :)
Paul

[ambershark]

@FamilyHistorian said in Compiling Qt 5.7 applications without Xcode:

@ambershark
First, Linux Rocks!, Mac follows.
Windoze ..
.
.
.
You are correct. the build process needs xcrun, apparently to compile a simple test program before configuring my application so I do need Xcode.
Thanks for your help :)
Paul

Lol agreed on the linux part. Been running Linux since about 2000 with a brief break from 2006-2008 for OSX. And while I love OSX I got real sick of my computers costing more than cars every year, so I've been back on linux since. :)

Good to know it does indeed require Xcode. I kind of figured that but it was worth a test. I use that permissions thing on my release builds all the time to make sure my distribution package is working and running independently of the Qt installed on my system. So I just permission out my Qt directory and run my app, if it tries to load something that isn't contained in my dist then it fails with permission probs. ;)