[CMake] Copy dlls to release and debug folder

[Thomas Richard]

Hi Lloyd,

Personally I copy the DLLs to the VS folder (so that the program can be run from visual studio) using the following script.
It looks more complicated than it is.

A macro is available to several of my projects to select which Qt module they use and create a list of dlls to copy.
Then I simply choose where to copy the DLLs according to the generator.
I also add them to the list of files to install.
Finally the last line is to remove the command prompt opening.



MACRO(GetQtDLLs DEBUG_NAME RELEASE_NAME)

FOREACH(module QT3SUPPORT QTOPENGL QTASSISTANT QTDESIGNER QTMOTIF QTNSPLUGIN
               QAXSERVER QAXCONTAINER QTDECLARATIVE QTSCRIPT QTSVG QTUITOOLS QTHELP
               QTWEBKIT PHONON QTSCRIPTTOOLS QTMULTIMEDIA QTGUI QTTEST QTDBUS QTXML QTSQL
               QTXMLPATTERNS QTNETWORK QTCORE)

	if (QT_USE_${module} OR QT_USE_${module}_DEPENDS)

		string(REPLACE ".lib" ".dll" QT_${module}_DLL "${QT_${module}_LIBRARY_DEBUG}")
		set (${DEBUG_NAME} ${${DEBUG_NAME}} ${QT_${module}_DLL})
		
		string(REPLACE ".lib" ".dll" QT_${module}_DLL "${QT_${module}_LIBRARY_RELEASE}")
		set (${RELEASE_NAME} ${${RELEASE_NAME}} ${QT_${module}_DLL})
	
	endif()
  
ENDFOREACH(module)

ENDMACRO()

if (WIN32)
	GetQtDLLs(DEBUG_DLLS RELEASE_DLLS)
	
	if (${CMAKE_GENERATOR} MATCHES "Visual Studio 11")
		# visual studio 12 expects the DLLs in the executable folder.
		# but not the resources!
		# can be changed into the environment property of the project to include the project's directory
		set (DLL_TO_DBG ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/Debug)
		set (DLL_TO_RELEASE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/Release)
	else()
		# for other version of visual studio the DLLs are expected into the project folder
		set (DLL_TO_DBG ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR})
		set (DLL_TO_RELEASE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR})
	endif()
	
	foreach(dll ${DEBUG_DLLS})
		file(COPY ${dll} DESTINATION ${DLL_TO_DBG})
	endforeach()
	
	foreach(dll ${RELEASE_DLLS})
		file(COPY ${dll} DESTINATION ${DLL_TO_RELEASE})
	endforeach()
		
	install(FILES ${RELEASE_DLLS} DESTINATION ${INSTALL_FELIXPARAMGUI_PATH} CONFIGURATIONS Release)
		
	#
	# this is disabled for debug only (so signal/slots connect failures are seen)!
	#
	# this property is used to remove the prompt window when running the GUI from the explorer on WIN32
	# doesn't have effect on linux 
	#
	set_target_properties(FelixParamGui PROPERTIES WIN32_EXECUTABLE ${FELIXPARAMGUI_WIN32EXE})
endif()

From: cmake-bounces at cmake.org [mailto:cmake-bounces at cmake.org] On Behalf Of Lloyd
Sent: 18 April 2013 11:33
To: CMake ML
Subject: [CMake] Copy dlls to release and debug folder

Hi,

I was successful in creating and building a project using CMake on Windows (Visual Studio). After the build when I try to run the application it throws an error asking for the dlls of Qt (I know it is a common case in Windows, usually we do copy the dlls to debug/release folder where the exe resides). When I searched the mailing list, I have seen an advise to use "add_custom_command(TARGET ...)". Is this the right approach? Wont it be executed after each build, thus causing repeated dll copies? 

Can you please suggest me the right way?

Thanks,
  Lloyd