I'm working on a netbeans c++ Qt project in Ubuntu. I would like to deploy this program to a stand-alone executable that can be run from Windows machines.
I can't find anything online on how to do this. Is it possible?
You will have to compile the source on a Windows machine or set up a cross compiling toolchain.
I highly suggest the first option as the second isn't any fun.
Then you will either have to statically link the proper Qt dlls and compile them into the final executable or simply copy the required dlls into the path of the executable. What's the easiest way to figure out the required dlls? Try to run the program, it will fail and tell you which libraries you need to link to it. (Or run an ldd on ubuntu and keep track of the list)
(Note:I think statically linking the libraries may have licensing implications. It has been a while since I looked at the Qt licenses.)
Related
I'm struggling to deploy my Qt/C++ application, probably because I have not found a good introduction about this online. In brief my question is how do I setup an installation framework which requires only minimal, or preferably no, compilation before shipping to users.
I want to deploy the GUI to users on different platforms, who may or may not have admin rights on their machines. I have found different options:
Statically compile Qt -> statically compile an executable -> distribute the executable. With this setup I have encountered a Windows security warning, which requires admin privileges (I have not yet tried on Linux / macOS). And frankly this approach seems sub-optimal, as my compiler has no idea about how to compile optimally for my users.
Create an installer. But there I start to be confused... Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of my GUI, or just of the installer, or neither? Or can I avoid pre-compiling on my side all together by using an installer from Qt with built-in compiler/libraries?
With this setup I have encountered a Windows security warning
You didn't sign the binaries. This issue has nothing to do with Qt. You'd face it even when distributing a trivial "Hello World".
Ensure that you sign all of the following:
The executables.
All DLLs that you redistribute and are not signed (verify each one).
The installer.
my compiler has no idea about how to compile optimally for my users.
Since C++ doesn't use just-in-time compilation, this statement is a truism. When you dynamically link your compiler will also have "no idea" how to compile "optimally for your users" if you imply that you need CPU-specific variants of your code. This has to be addressed by having multiple executables, each compiled for a particular CPU, and selecting them on installation. I don't think you meant that, though. But then I have no idea what you mean by "compile optimally for my users".
Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of my GUI
It's up to you. If you don't provide a statically compiled executable, you will need to provide all of the dependencies: the C++ runtime of your compiler, and all the libraries and plugins needed by Qt.
The procedure for producing a statically linked executable on Windows, Linux and OS X is identical. You start with a statically configured copy of Qt (configure -static -static-runtime), then build it, and then use that to build your application. The end product will be statically linked against C++ runtime and Qt libraries.
Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of [...] the installer
Only if you compile the installer program yourself using a C++ compiler. Most installer generator packages take care of creating an installer that has no additional dependencies, i.e. you can run it on a bare Windows system.
can I avoid pre-compiling on my side all together by using an installer from Qt
Qt provides no pre-built installers for re-use.
You can use e.g. NSIS to deploy the compiler runtime, Qt libraries and plugins, and your application and any data files it needs.
Or you can statically compile your application so that it has no dependencies and is a single .exe file, and have it as a portable application. It could also self-install, i.e. you could bundle the installer within the application, and on startup the application could detect whether it's already installed, and if not it'd relaunch itself in administrative mode and perform the installation.
Obviously you need to build your application on each platform you want to distribute it to. Easiest way is to link all the QT libraries dynamically to your application. After that all you need to do is provide your application (as in exe file on windows, or executable on linux etc) and the QT libraries you used (DLLs on windows, SO file I think on linux etc)
For example (on windows) if your app is called MyApp and uses QTGui, QTWidgets and QTNetwork, then you have the following files to distribute:
MyApp.exe
QTCore.dll and few other DLLs needed called icu*.dll something, can't remember)
QTGui.dll
QTWidgets.dll
QTNetwork.dll
and you can zip them all in one zip, create an installer etc.
EDIT Few notes after the follow up in the comment.
The standard library (what you called default library that has vector class) is part of the c/c++ runtime (on windows) or installed on linux systems etc, so no, you don't have to worry about this. I can't say for all compilers but for some you can specify a flag/parameter to link this runtime statically (rarely there is a need to do this).
On windows there is a tool called dependency walker, which gives you the list of all DLLs needed for the application to run. On linux systems I don't know, never needed one really. But for your own application, you do know which libraries you need, since you wrote it :)
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/deployment-windows.html say:
Before we can build our application we must make sure that Qt is built statically. To do this, go to a command prompt and type the following:
cd C:\path\to\Qt
configure -static <any other options you need>
doing so result in:
'configure' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
is there any step by step guide explaining how can I configure my QT project so that it produces statically linked binaries?
Also, this guide seem to expect user to have full msvc compiler, I am using MinGW so I have no setenv batches
Make sure you've downloaded the .zip variant of Qt sources (4.8.5). The .tar.gz one is missing configure.exe, at least for Qt 5.
It should work then.
Note that there are two levels of "staticness":
Qt itself as a static library.
Qt's (and your application's) dependency on the C/C++ runtime.
Since you likely want both, you must coerce Qt itself to statically link with the C/C++ runtime library. I've not done it for mingw yet, but it will require changing the relevant qmake.conf. This change will propagate to the code you build using such tweaked Qt, so your application will statically link to both Qt and to the C/C++ runtime.
Using MSVC2012 and link time code generation, after UPX-ing the executable, the size is ~3mb for a small application using the gui and network modules. Just to give an idea of how big it will be. It'll likely be larger when using mingw.
This may be obvious, but I want to make sure what to do before I do anything rash. I want to compile my C++ program, libraries and all, to a release executable such that the file can be run on any computer (running the same OS). Right now, I'm on Mac OS X (10.7.4) and I need to be able to run my executable on other Macs. The problem is I am using the OpenCV library in my project, and I only have it installed on this computer. Is there a way to compile with g++ such that if I open this program on a computer that doesn't have the OpenCV library installed, it will work anyway? As in, build all the dependencies into the executable. Or does this happen automatically?
I am also quite new to the ".o" object files, so can those have anything to do with it? I would prefer a way to get it all into a single file, but I'll settle for a package as long as it works.
Thank you.
To expand on molbdnilo's answer, you'll need to create an application bundle (see the Apple Bundle Programming guide). You'll need to move your console application to MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp. There's also a Frameworks directory in which you'll need to add the OpenCV library as a framework. See the OpenCV Wiki for some information on the OpenCV framework. A framework (at its simplest) is pretty much a dynamic library wrapped in a particular directory structure.
I would suggest looking into using Xcode on the mac as it simplifies the construction of bundles and linking to frameworks compared to doing it yourself via scripting and Makefiles.
There are two ways to do this. You can static link if you aren't going to run into licensing issues with any of the libraries you are linking to. This is pretty easily handled by using g++ -o myApp -static -lopencv myapp.cpp However, this also depends on static libraries existing for the libraries you want to link to. Most distribute static libs with the shared libs these days.
The other way is to distribute the shared libraries and tell your application to force it to look in a certain spot for the shared library using -rpath. Note: I am telling you the Linux way to do this, it will probably work on a Mac but I have no way to test.
So say all of your shared libraries are in the same directory as your executable, you can compile with: g++ -rpath ./ -lopencv -o YourApp yourApp.cpp
I hope this helps.
Im helping on a c++ application. The application is very large and is spread out between different sub directories. It uses a script to auto generate qt .pro files for each project directory and uses qmake to then generate make files. Currently the libraries are being compiled in alphabetical order.. which is obviously causing linking errors when a library its trying to link isn't built yet.. Is there some kind of g++ flag i can set so it wont error out if a library its trying to link hasn't been built yet? or a way to make it build dependencies first through the qt .pro file?
NOTE:
This script works fine on ubuntu 10.10 because the statements to build the shared libraries didnt require that i use -l(libraryname) to link to my other libraries but ubuntu 11.10 does so it was giving me undefined reference errors when compiling on 11.10.
Have you looked into using Qt Creator as a build environment and IDE? I've personally never used it for development on Ubuntu, but I have used it on Windows with g++, and it works great there. And it appears its already available as a package in the repository.
Some of the advantages you get by using it are:
Qt Creator will (generally) manage the .pro files for you. (If you're like me, you can still add lots of extra stuff here, but it will automatically add .cpp, .h, and .ui files as they are added to the project.)
You can set up inter-project dependencies that will build projects in whatever order they need to link.
You can use its integration with gdb to step through and debug code, as well as jump to the code.
You get autocomplete on Qt signals and slots, as well as inline syntax highlighting and some error checking.
If you're doing GUIs, you can use the integrated designer to visually layout and design your forms.
Referring back to your actual question, I don't think it's possible for a flag to tell gcc to not error when a link fails simply because there is no way for the linker to lazily link libraries. If its linking to static libraries (.a), then it needs to be able to actually copy the implementation of that code into the executable/library. If its dynamically linking (.so), it still needs to verify that the required functions actually exist in the library. If it can't link it during the linkage step, when can it link?
As a bit of an afterthought, if there are cyclic dependencies in your compile process (A depends on B, B on C, and C on A), then you might need to have a fake version of a library get built first, which only has empty stubs for the implementation of each function, and the full definition for each class or object. Then, build everything else while linking to that, and at the end, build the real version of the fake library, and link it to all the other versions that were already linked. I think this would only work on dynamic linking, though.
You could use a subdirs project to have control over the build order (no matter whether the other dev wants it or not :) ).
E.g.
build_all.pro
TEMPLATE=subdirs
CONFIG+=ordered
SUBDIRS=lib2/lib2.pro lib1/lib1.pro app/app.pro
The lib1.pro, lib2.pro, ... are your generated pro files.
Then run qmake once for the build_all.pro and also run make in that directory. This will build lib2 before lib1 and then app.
I want to create a program that could work on any computer without the source code, How is that possible? and does it make any difference if I used OpenGL in the Program?
You cannot code a program in C++ that would work on any computer without giving your source code to be compiled.
For example, you could perhaps code in C++ a program, and compile it and build an executable which works on Windows x86-64, but that executable won't work on Linux (or MacOSX), and it won't work on ARM (e.g. Android phones) unless you consider using emulators
If you are developing your code with Visual C++ you may need to consider two options:
Make sure you link all libraries statically.
Install on the target computers along with your program Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package corresponding to the Visual C++ version you use like the one at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555. Some installer generating software will make it for you automatically.
Normally you would link your object file with some sort of a platform dependent loader. This loader loads your object and does all the stuff to start it from memory. Normally you can tell your compiler to link your object file and compile a blob. OpenGL is a powerful API and is usually distributed as a.dynamic linked library and is linked at runtime to your program. If I remember you just have to make sure the dll is where you want it and load the dll in your program from start.
Your C++ program is compiled and linked into an executable before it is run. You should be able to find that executable in a Debug or Release subfolder of the folder containing your project.
OpenGL, if you're not using GLUT or similar libraries, should just come with Windows and pose no additional problems. If you do use GLUT, it's enough to bundle the .dll file with your application.
In any case, the source code won't be necessary.
I want to create a program that could work on any computer without the source code, How is that possible? and does it make any difference if I used OpenGL in the Program?
By compiling and linking it into an executable. As long as you're not using some interpreted language (like Python, Ruby or such) you're presented with an executable inevitably. The biggest problem you may/will run into is dependencies on libraries. However those are linked into a binary as well. So what you're going to ship will be just a .exe; and some .dll maybe. Usually you'd wrap this in a installer package for deployment to the end user. Installers are created with something like the "NullSoft Installer System" (NSIS).
OpenGL itself is just a API, provided by a system library. So you don't ship OpenGL with your program, but expect the user to have it installed on the system (which will be the case if he installed the graphics drivers).