Variables

Specifies project configuration and compiler options. The values are recognized internally by qmake and have special meaning.

The following CONFIG values control compilation flags:

When you use the debug_and_release option (which is the default under Windows), the project will be processed three times: one time to produce a "meta" Makefile, and two more times to produce a Makefile.Debug and a Makefile.Release.

During the latter passes, build_pass and the respective debug or release option is appended to CONFIG. This makes it possible to perform build-specific tasks. For example:

build_pass:CONFIG(debug, debug|release) {
    unix: TARGET = $$join(TARGET,,,_debug)
    else: TARGET = $$join(TARGET,,,d)
}

As an alternative to manually writing build type conditionals, some variables offer build-specific variants, for example QMAKE_LFLAGS_RELEASE in addition to the general QMAKE_LFLAGS. These should be used when available.

The meta Makefile makes the sub-builds invokable via the debug and release targets, and a combined build via the all target. When the build_all CONFIG option is used, the combined build is the default. Otherwise, the last specified CONFIG option from the set (debug, release) determines the default. In this case, you can explicitly invoke the all target to build both configurations at once:

make all

When linking a library, qmake relies on the underlying platform to know what other libraries this library links against. However, if linking statically, qmake will not get this information unless we use the following CONFIG options:

The following options define the application or library type:

These options define specific features on Windows only:

See Platform Notes for more information about the options for embedding manifest files.

The following options take an effect only on macOS:

The build process for bundles is also influenced by the contents of the QMAKE_BUNDLE_DATA variable.

The following options take an effect only on Linux/Unix platforms:

The CONFIG variable will also be checked when resolving scopes. You may assign anything to this variable.

For example:

CONFIG += console newstuff
...
newstuff {
    SOURCES += new.cpp
    HEADERS += new.h
}

qmake adds the values of this variable as compiler C preprocessor macros (-D option).

For example:

DEFINES += USE_MY_STUFF

Specifies preprocessor defines for the debug configuration. The values of this variable get added to DEFINES before the project is loaded. This variable is typically set in qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

This variable was introduced in Qt 5.13.2.

Specifies preprocessor defines for the release configuration. The values of this variable get added to DEFINES before the project is loaded. This variable is typically set in qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

This variable was introduced in Qt 5.13.2.

Specifies a .def file to be included in the project.

Specifies a list of directories for qmake to scan, to resolve dependencies. This variable is used when qmake crawls through the header files that you #include in your source code.

Specifies where to put the target file.

For example:

DESTDIR = ../../lib

Specifies a list of files to be included in the dist target. This feature is supported by UnixMake specs only.

For example:

DISTFILES += ../program.txt

Specifies where to copy the target dll.

Specifies a list of translation (.ts) files that contain translations of the user interface text into non-native languages.

In contrast to TRANSLATIONS, translation files in EXTRA_TRANSLATIONS will be processed only by lrelease, not lupdate.

You can use CONFIG += lrelease to automatically compile the files during the build, and CONFIG += lrelease embed_translations to make them available in The Qt Resource System.

See the Qt Linguist Manual for more information about internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) with Qt.

Specifies the UI files (see Qt Designer Manual) to be processed by uic before compiling. All dependencies, headers and source files required to build these UI files will automatically be added to the project.

For example:

FORMS = mydialog.ui \
    mywidget.ui \
        myconfig.ui

Specifies the GUID that is set inside a .vcproj file. The GUID is usually randomly determined. However, should you require a fixed GUID, it can be set using this variable.

This variable is specific to .vcproj files only; it is ignored otherwise.

Defines the header files for the project.

qmake automatically detects whether moc is required by the classes in the headers, and adds the appropriate dependencies and files to the project for generating and linking the moc files.

For example:

HEADERS = myclass.h \
          login.h \
          mainwindow.h

See also SOURCES.

This variable is used only on Mac OS to set the application icon. Please see the application icon documentation for more information.

This variable is used only on Windows for the Visual Studio project generation to put the specified files in the Generated Files folder.

Specifies the #include directories which should be searched when compiling the project.

For example:

INCLUDEPATH = c:/msdev/include d:/stl/include

To specify a path containing spaces, quote the path using the technique described in Whitespace.

win32:INCLUDEPATH += "C:/mylibs/extra headers"
unix:INCLUDEPATH += "/home/user/extra headers"

Specifies a list of resources that will be installed when make install or a similar installation procedure is executed. Each item in the list is typically defined with attributes that provide information about where it will be installed.

For example, the following target.path definition describes where the build target will be installed, and the INSTALLS assignment adds the build target to the list of existing resources to be installed:

target.path += $$[QT_INSTALL_PLUGINS]/imageformats
INSTALLS += target

INSTALLS has a .CONFIG member that can take several values:

For more information, see Installing Files.

This variable is also used to specify which additional files will be deployed to embedded devices.

Specifies a list of Lex implementation files. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the names of intermediate Lex object files. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies a list of Lex source files. All dependencies, headers and source files will automatically be added to the project for building these lex files.

For example:

LEXSOURCES = lexer.l

Specifies a list of libraries to be linked into the project. If you use the Unix -l (library) and -L (library path) flags, qmake handles the libraries correctly on Windows (that is, passes the full path of the library to the linker). The library must exist for qmake to find the directory where a -l lib is located.

For example:

unix:LIBS += -L/usr/local/lib -lmath
win32:LIBS += c:/mylibs/math.lib

To specify a path containing spaces, quote the path using the technique described in Whitespace.

win32:LIBS += "C:/mylibs/extra libs/extra.lib"
unix:LIBS += "-L/home/user/extra libs" -lextra

By default, the list of libraries stored in LIBS is reduced to a list of unique names before it is used. To change this behavior, add the no_lflags_merge option to the CONFIG variable:

CONFIG += no_lflags_merge

Specifies a list of libraries to be linked privately into the project. The behavior of this variable is identical to LIBS, except that shared library projects built for Unix do not expose these dependencies in their link interface.

The effect of this is that if project C depends on library B which depends on library A privately, but C also wants to use symbols from A directly, it needs to link to A explicitly. Put differently, libraries linked privately are not exposed transitively at build time.

This variable is used whenever a literal hash character (#) is needed in a variable declaration, perhaps as part of a file name or in a string passed to some external application.

For example:

# To include a literal hash character, use the $$LITERAL_HASH variable:
urlPieces = http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtextdocument.html pageCount
message($$join(urlPieces, $$LITERAL_HASH))

By using LITERAL_HASH in this way, the # character can be used to construct a URL for the message() function to print to the console.

Specifies the name of the generated Makefile. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the name of the Makefile generator to use when generating a Makefile. The value of this variable is typically handled internally by qmake and rarely needs to be modified.

These variables are handled internally by qmake and should not be modified or utilized.

Specifies the directory where all intermediate moc files should be placed.

For example:

unix:MOC_DIR = ../myproject/tmp
win32:MOC_DIR = c:/myproject/tmp

Defines the Objective-C++ header files for the project.

qmake automatically detects whether moc is required by the classes in the headers, and adds the appropriate dependencies and files to the project for generating and linking the moc files.

This is similar to the HEADERS variable, but will let the generated moc files be compiled with the Objective-C++ compiler.

See also OBJECTIVE_SOURCES.

Specifies the names of all Objective-C/C++ source files in the project.

This variable is now obsolete, Objective-C/C++ files (.m and .mm) can be added to the SOURCES variable.

See also OBJECTIVE_HEADERS.

This variable is automatically populated from the SOURCES variable. The extension of each source file is replaced by .o (Unix) or .obj (Win32). You can add objects to the list.

Specifies the directory where all intermediate objects should be placed.

For example:

unix:OBJECTS_DIR = ../myproject/tmp
win32:OBJECTS_DIR = c:/myproject/tmp

Lists the libraries that the target depends on. Some backends, such as the generators for Visual Studio and Xcode project files, do not support this variable. Generally, this variable is supported internally by these build tools, and it is useful for explicitly listing dependent static libraries.

This list is placed after all builtin (and $$PRE_TARGETDEPS) dependencies.

Lists libraries that the target depends on. Some backends, such as the generators for Visual Studio and Xcode project files, do not support this variable. Generally, this variable is supported internally by these build tools, and it is useful for explicitly listing dependent static libraries.

This list is placed before all builtin dependencies.

Indicates the header file for creating a precompiled header file, to increase the compilation speed of a project. Precompiled headers are currently only supported on some platforms (Windows - all MSVC project types, Apple - Xcode, Makefile, Unix - gcc 3.3 and up).

Specifies the full path leading to the directory containing the current file being parsed. This can be useful to refer to files within the source tree when writing project files to support shadow builds.

See also _PRO_FILE_PWD_.

Specifies the full path leading to the directory where qmake places the generated Makefile.

Specifies the directory in the resource system where .qm files will be made available by CONFIG += embed_translations.

The default is :/i18n/.

Specifies the target directory .qm files generated by CONFIG += lrelease will be installed to. Does not have any effect if CONFIG += embed_translations is set.

Specifies the name of the qmake program itself and is placed in generated Makefiles. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

A system variable that contains the full path of the qmake configuration that is used when generating Makefiles. The value of this variable is automatically computed.

Specifies the command to execute when creating a shared library. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the data that will be installed with a library bundle, and is often used to specify a collection of header files.

For example, the following lines add path/to/header_one.h and path/to/header_two.h to a group containing information about the headers supplied with the framework:

FRAMEWORK_HEADERS.version = Versions
FRAMEWORK_HEADERS.files = path/to/header_one.h path/to/header_two.h
FRAMEWORK_HEADERS.path = Headers
QMAKE_BUNDLE_DATA += FRAMEWORK_HEADERS

The last line adds the information about the headers to the collection of resources that will be installed with the library bundle.

Library bundles are created when the lib_bundle option is added to the CONFIG variable.

See Platform Notes for more information about creating library bundles.

Specifies the extension to be used for library bundles. This allows frameworks to be created with custom extensions instead of the standard .framework directory name extension.

For example, the following definition will result in a framework with the .myframework extension:

QMAKE_BUNDLE_EXTENSION = .myframework

Specifies the C compiler that will be used when building projects containing C source code. Only the file name of the compiler executable needs to be specified as long as it is on a path contained in the PATH variable when the Makefile is processed.

Specifies the C compiler flags for building a project. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified. The flags specific to debug and release modes can be adjusted by modifying the QMAKE_CFLAGS_DEBUG and QMAKE_CFLAGS_RELEASE variables, respectively.

Specifies the C compiler flags for debug builds. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C compiler flags for release builds. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C compiler flags for release builds where force_debug_info is set in CONFIG. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the compiler flags for creating a shared library. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the compiler flags for creating a multi-threaded application. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

This variable is used only when the warn_off CONFIG option is set. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

This variable is used only when the warn_on CONFIG option is set. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies a list of generated files (by moc and uic, for example) and object files to be removed by make clean.

Specifies the C++ compiler that will be used when building projects containing C++ source code. Only the file name of the compiler executable needs to be specified as long as it is on a path contained in the PATH variable when the Makefile is processed.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for building a project. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified. The flags specific to debug and release modes can be adjusted by modifying the QMAKE_CXXFLAGS_DEBUG and QMAKE_CXXFLAGS_RELEASE variables, respectively.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for debug builds. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for release builds. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for release builds where force_debug_info is set in CONFIG. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for creating a shared library. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for creating a multi-threaded application. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags for suppressing compiler warnings. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies C++ compiler flags for generating compiler warnings. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

The identifier of a development team to use for signing certificates and provisioning profiles.

Specifies a list of files to be removed by make distclean.

Contains the extension for shared libraries. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Contains the extension for shared static libraries. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Contains the extension used on included moc files.

See also File Extensions.

Contains the extension used on Qt Designer UI files.

See also File Extensions.

Contains the extension used on created PRL files.

See also File Extensions, Library Dependencies.

Contains the extension used on files given to Lex.

See also File Extensions, LEXSOURCES.

Contains the extension used on files given to Yacc.

See also File Extensions, YACCSOURCES.

Contains the extension used on generated object files.

See also File Extensions.

Contains suffixes for files that should be interpreted as C++ source code.

See also File Extensions.

Contains suffixes for files which should be interpreted as C header files.

See also File Extensions.

Specifies a list of additional compilers or preprocessors.

See also Adding Compilers.

Specifies a list of additional qmake targets.

See also Adding Custom Targets.

Contains the list of failed requirements. The value of this variable is set by qmake and cannot be modified.

See also requires() and REQUIRES.

In a framework project, this variable contains the name to be used for the framework that is built.

By default, this variable contains the same value as the TARGET variable.

See Creating Frameworks for more information about creating frameworks and library bundles.

For projects where the build target is a macOS, iOS, tvOS, or watchOS framework, this variable is used to specify the version number that will be applied to the framework that is built.

By default, this variable contains the same value as the VERSION variable.

See Creating Frameworks for more information about creating frameworks.

Provides information about the host machine running qmake. For example, you can retrieve the host machine architecture from QMAKE_HOST.arch.

win32-g++:contains(QMAKE_HOST.arch, x86_64):{
    message("Host is 64bit")
    ...
}

Specifies the list of system header paths that are appended to INCLUDEPATH. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the location of EGL header files to be added to INCLUDEPATH when building a target with OpenGL/ES or OpenVG support. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

Specifies the location of OpenGL header files to be added to INCLUDEPATH when building a target with OpenGL support. The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or qmake.conf and rarely needs to be modified.

If the OpenGL implementation uses EGL (most OpenGL/ES systems), then QMAKE_INCDIR_EGL may also need to be set.

This variable specifies the location of OpenGL header files to be added to INCLUDEPATH when building a target with OpenGL ES 2 support.

The value of this variable is typically handled by qmake or