Qt/Mac Issues

If you want to incorporate dynamic libraries as part of your Mac OS X application bundle (the application directory), then you place these into a directory called Frameworks, a subdirectory of the application bundle.

The application finds these dynamic libraries if the libraries have an install name of "@executable_path/../Frameworks/libname.dylib.

If you use qmake and Makefiles, use the QMAKE_LFFLAGS_SONAME setting:

QMAKE_LFLAGS_SONAME  = -Wl,-install_name,@executable_path/../Frameworks/

In case of Project Builder, you set the Library targets to have their install path (in the Build Settings of the target) set to "@executable_path/.../Frameworks". You also need to add a custom build setting called "SKIP_INSTALL" and set this to YES. In the Application target you need to add a Copy Files build phase that will copy the library product into the applications wrapper's Framework sub-folder.

Note that DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables will override these settings, same with any other default paths such as a lookup of dynamic libraries inside /usr/lib and similar default locations.

We still strongly recommend to build static applications where the library code is incorporated into the Mac OS X binary. However, in case you ship applications that require plugin support,then you need to use dynamic libraries as part of your application.

Combining Libraries

#if defined(Q_OS_MACX)
// the code used
#endif

QWidget::sizeHint() const referenced from libqui expected to be defined in @executable_path/../Frameworks/libqt-mt.3.dylib
non-virtual thunk [nv:-40] to QWidget::metric(int) const referenced from libqui
 expected to be defined in @executable_path/../Frameworks/libqt-mt.3.dylib

        CFURLRef pluginRef = CFBundleCopyBundleURL(CFBundleGetMainBundle());
        CFStringRef macPath = CFURLCopyFileSystemPath(pluginRef, 
                                               kCFURLPOSIXPathStyle);
        const char *pathPtr = CFStringGetCStringPtr(macPath, 
                                               CFStringGetSystemEncoding());
        qDebug("Path = %s", pathPtr);