I have talked before about dynamic building (click me) and now is the time for the static building. This is a long process that has many steps but I have to share my knowledge for those who are interested because I didn’t find a page that goes throw the entire process in details.
The main reason for static building is collecting all the needed DLLs that you need in a single executable file (*.exe), so the target computer does not need to install any packages or programs.
The steps are as follows:
1- Configuring Qt Creator for static building, and compiling it.
2- Building your application project statically using the configured Qt Creator.
1- Configuring Qt Creator for static building:
Unfortunately, the normal Qt Creator that you install is only configured for static building. So you have to do one of the following:
1.1- Download the Qt-Everywhere project and build your own customized Qt Creator:
- This is done by downloading the (qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.6.3.zip)
- Uncompress the file in a directory like C:\Qt\4.6.3
- Use Visual Studio Command Prompt to browse to this folder (is should be containing a ‘configure’ file).
- Assuming you have Visual Studio 2005 or 2008, configure this project for windows with a command like this from Visual Studio Command Prompt (not tested):
configure -platform win32-msvc2008 –static –release -nomake demos -nomake examples –opensource -confirm-license -no-exceptions
for more configure options: type
configure –helpor download this file.
This may take about 30 minutes, and when done you can type
nmake sub-srcthen just relax and find something to do in the next two hours (give or take an hour)
1.2- If you have already installed Qt Creator on your PC:
You can reconfigure it to build statically by writing the following command in the ‘Qt Command Prompt’ (I prefer taking a copy and configuring it, so I use the original for developing and debuggingm, and the new one for the final build):
then when done after about 30 minutes or less, type
then just relax and find something to do in the next two hours (give or take an hour)
Now you have a Qt Creator configured for static building.
2- Building your application project statically using the configured Qt Creator:
2.1 Create any Qt project you want, than add the following lines in the project (*.pro) file:
2.2 Now go to the Qt Command Prompt and browse to the folder of your application and type
Where:
helloworld.pro is the project file of my Qt application.
qmake is the file used to create the Makefile.
C:\Qt\Qt-2010.01-static\qt\bin\ is the directory of qmake in the newly compiled Qt Creator.
2.3 Now write
2.4 The statically built application can be found in the ‘Release’ folder in your project.
configure -static -release -no-exceptions -nomake demos -nomake examples –opensource -confirm-license
then when done after about 30 minutes or less, type
mingw32-make sub-src
then just relax and find something to do in the next two hours (give or take an hour)
Now you have a Qt Creator configured for static building.
2- Building your application project statically using the configured Qt Creator:
2.1 Create any Qt project you want, than add the following lines in the project (*.pro) file:
win32 {
QMAKE_LFLAGS += -static-libgcc
}
2.2 Now go to the Qt Command Prompt and browse to the folder of your application and type
C:\Qt\Qt-2010.01-static\qt\bin\qmake helloworld.pro
Where:
helloworld.pro is the project file of my Qt application.
qmake is the file used to create the Makefile.
C:\Qt\Qt-2010.01-static\qt\bin\ is the directory of qmake in the newly compiled Qt Creator.
2.3 Now write
mingw32-make
2.4 The statically built application can be found in the ‘Release’ folder in your project.
Some Comments:
1- Why bothering myself and doing all these steps? For me, nothing is wrong with adding the needed DLLs in the same folder with the dynamically built application.
2- There is this lovely warning that appears while configuring Qt:
WARNING: Using static linking will disable the use of plugins. Make sure you compile ALL needed modules into the library.
So I have to make sure that all the plugins that I may use in the future are available. (Click here for more:step3)
Building Qt Static (and Dynamic) and Making it Small with GCC, Microsoft Visual Studio, and the Intel Compiler
How to statically link Qt 4
Qt static linking and removing the mingw-dll Dependency
Removing dependencies for mingwm10.dll and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll,static linking?
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