Gotcha warning - Qt5 source build on Windows with Visual Studio

[d_stranz]

Qt 5 is now officially released, but binaries are not available for Visual Studio 2008. Therefore, you must build it from source.

There are several "gotchas" to beware of:

1 - If you download the source rather than clone the git repository, you must download the ZIP file version, not the tar.gz version. The ZIP version contains a file that is required for bootstrapping the configuration, and this file is missing from the tarball. If you don't have this file, the config fails. So, download the ZIP distribution.

2 - You must have both perl and python installed. The configure script depends on them. Be sure both are installed and in your $path. See the README file in the toplevel directory of the distribution for version details.

3 - If you are building libraries for desktop use, the configure command given in the README file will not work, because it defaults to OpenGL/ES, which is not installed on Windows desktops by default. So use this configure command instead (from a Visual Studio 2008 command window - in VS, find it on the Tools menu):

configure -prefix %CD%\qtbase -opensource -opengl desktop -nomake tests

configure -prefix %CD%\qtbase -opensource -opengl desktop -nomake tests

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4 - Once the configuration script is done, build the sources:

nmake

nmake

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Then go and have lunch, and maybe it will be done by the time you get back.

I wasted half a day before finally figuring all this out.

[SubV]

I'd like to add something. After the build process finishes, you'll also need to build the Qt docs. Type

nmake docs

nmake docs

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and wait until it finishes.

[astodolski]

Qt 5 is now officially released, but binaries are not available for Visual Studio 2008. Therefore, you must build it from source.

There are several "gotchas" to beware of:

1 - If you download the source rather than clone the git repository, you must download the ZIP file version, not the tar.gz version. The ZIP version contains a file that is required for bootstrapping the configuration, and this file is missing from the tarball. If you don't have this file, the config fails. So, download the ZIP distribution.

2 - You must have both perl and python installed. The configure script depends on them. Be sure both are installed and in your $path. See the README file in the toplevel directory of the distribution for version details.

3 - If you are building libraries for desktop use, the configure command given in the README file will not work, because it defaults to OpenGL/ES, which is not installed on Windows desktops by default. So use this configure command instead (from a Visual Studio 2008 command window - in VS, find it on the Tools menu):

configure -prefix %CD%\qtbase -opensource -opengl desktop -nomake tests

configure -prefix %CD%\qtbase -opensource -opengl desktop -nomake tests

To copy to clipboard, switch view to plain text mode 

4 - Once the configuration script is done, build the sources:

nmake

nmake

To copy to clipboard, switch view to plain text mode 

Then go and have lunch, and maybe it will be done by the time you get back.

I wasted half a day before finally figuring all this out.

From the Qt for Windows Requirements It states that "Install Python from here and add the installation location to your PATH in order to be able to build QtJsBackend and QtWebKit." If you're not building those features, I wonder if you can defer installing Python.

[fojtik]

It does not work! Several QT dll are really built, but compilation hangs.

cl -c -FIqt_gui_pch.h -Yuqt_gui_pch.h -Fp.pch\debug\Qt5Guid_pch.pch -nologo -Zm200 -Zc:wchar_t -arch:SSE2 -Zi -MDd -GR -W3 -w34100 -w34189 /Fd..\..\lib\
Qt5Guid.pdb -DUNICODE -DWIN32 -DQT_NO_USING_NAMESPACE -DQT_BUILD_GUI_LIB -DQT_BUILDING_QT -D_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS -D_USE_MATH_DEFINES -DQT_NO_CAST_TO_ASCII -DQT_ASCII_CAST_WARNINGS -DQT_MOC_COMPAT -DQT_USE_QSTRINGBUILDER -DQT_DEPRECATED_WARNINGS -DQT_DISABLE_DEPRECATED_BEFORE=0x040800 -DQT_USE_BUNDLED_LIBPNG -DQT_OPENGL_ES_2 -DQT_OPENGL_ES_2_ANGLE -DQT_NO_EXCEPTIONS -DQT_CORE_LIB -I"..\..\include" -I"..\..\include\QtGui" -I"..\..\include\QtANGLE" -I"..\..\include\QtGui\5.3.2" -I"..\..\include\QtGui\5.3.2\QtGui" -I"tmp" -I"image" -I"..\3rdparty\libpng"
-I"..\3rdparty\zlib" -I"..\3rdparty\zlib" -I"..\..\include\QtCore\5.3.2" -I"..\..\include\QtCore\5.3.2\QtCore" -I"..\..\include\QtCore" -I".moc\debug" -I"..\..\mkspecs\win32-svc2008" -Fo.obj\debug\ @C:\DOCUME~1\FOJTIK~1.ESC\LOCALS~1\Temp\n
m131F.tmp
qopenglcontext.cpp
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(368) : error C2065: 'GL_PROXY_TEXTURE_2D' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(373) : error C2065: 'QOpenGLFunctions_1_0' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(373) : error C2065: 'gl1funcs' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(373) : error C2065: 'QOpenGLFunctions_1_0' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(374) : error C2065: 'gl1funcs' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(374) : error C2227: left of '->initializeOpenGLFunctions' must point to class/struct/union/generic type
type is ''unknown-type''
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(375) : error C2065: 'gl1funcs' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(375) : error C2227: left of '->glGetTexLevelParameteriv' must point to class/struct/union/generic type
type is ''unknown-type''
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(375) : error C2065: 'GL_TEXTURE_WIDTH' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(386) : error C2065: 'gl1funcs' : undeclared identifier
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(386) : error C2227: left of '->glGetTexLevelParameteriv' must point to class/struct/union/generic type
type is ''unknown-type''
kernel\qopenglcontext.cpp(386) : error C2065: 'GL_TEXTURE_WIDTH' : undeclared identifier
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\BIN\cl.EXE"' : return code '0x2'
Stop.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\BIN\nmake.exe"' : return code '0x2'
Stop.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'cd' : return code '0x2'
Stop.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'cd' : return code '0x2'
Stop.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'cd' : return code '0x2'
Stop.