qmake

qmake is a cross-platform build automation tool that comes with the Qt toolkit. It generates makefiles or other build inputs from a concise description of a project's sources and dependencies. Originating with Trolltech, qmake is now maintained by The Qt Company and the Qt community and remains a standard tool in many Qt projects for building on multiple platforms and compilers.

Projects are described in one or more .pro files (and optional .pri include files). A .pro file lists sources (SOURCES), headers (HEADERS), resources (RESOURCES), and translations (TRANSLATIONS), along with build configuration (CONFIG). Qt modules are declared via the QT variable (for example, QT += core widgets). Other settings include INCLUDEPATH, LIBS, DEFINES, and QMAKE_CXXFLAGS. Subprojects can be organized with TEMPLATE = subdirs and SUBDIRS.

Usage involves running qmake on a .pro file to generate a Makefile or another platform-specific build file, followed by invoking the underlying build tool (such as make on Unix-like systems or nmake on Windows). Example commands include: qmake myproject.pro and then make. The -o option can direct qmake to write the generated file to a specified name, and -spec can select a particular build specification for the target platform and compiler.

Relation to the Qt ecosystem: qmake integrates with the Qt Creator IDE and supports multiple Qt versions. While still used widely, some projects adopt CMake for larger codebases due to its greater flexibility. Nevertheless, qmake remains supported for Qt 5 and Qt 6 projects and continues to serve as a straightforward build workflow for many developers.

See also: Qt, Qt Creator, CMake, Make, nmake.