Project

General

Profile

Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT

Added by Michael Möllney over 3 years ago

Hi

Sorry if this is handled somewhere else. I found a message with answer giving hints how to use the prebuild exiv2 MinGW version with Qt but this does not seem to work with my installation.

The messges I found are using MinGW 4.9.2 and Qt 5.6 while I like to use the current Qt LTS 5.9.x which is prebuild by Qt along with MinGW 5.3.0.

Whenever I link my program with MinGW I get the message:

g++ -Wl,-subsystem,windows -mthreads -o debug\PhotoCollector.exe debug/main.o debug/mainwindow.o debug/photocollection.o debug/photofile.o debug/photocollectionmodel.o debug/moc_mainwindow.o debug/moc_photocollection.o  -lmingw32 -LC:\Qt_online\5.9.5\mingw53_32\lib C:\Qt_online\5.9.5\mingw53_32\lib\libqtmaind.a -LC:\utils\my_sql\my_sql\lib -LC:\utils\postgresql\pgsql\lib -lshell32 -LC:\Users\Michael\Downloads\Exif\exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar\exiv2-0.26-mingw\dist\mingw\lib -lexiv2.dll C:\Qt_online\5.9.5\mingw53_32\lib\libQt5Widgetsd.a C:\Qt_online\5.9.5\mingw53_32\lib\libQt5Guid.a C:\Qt_online\5.9.5\mingw53_32\lib\libQt5Cored.a 
debug/photocollectionmodel.o: In function `ZNK20PhotoCollectionModel4dataERK11QModelIndexi':
C:\Users\Michael\Documents\Projects\PhotoCollector\PC_trunk\build-PhotoCollector-Desktop_Qt_5_9_5_MinGW_32bit-Debug/../PhotoCollector/photocollectionmodel.cpp:61: undefined reference to `Exiv2::ImageFactory::open(std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&, bool)'
C:\Users\Michael\Documents\Projects\PhotoCollector\PC_trunk\build-PhotoCollector-Desktop_Qt_5_9_5_MinGW_32bit-Debug/../PhotoCollector/photocollectionmodel.cpp:64: undefined reference to `Exiv2::ExifData::operator[](std::__cxx11::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&)'
C:\Users\Michael\Documents\Projects\PhotoCollector\PC_trunk\build-PhotoCollector-Desktop_Qt_5_9_5_MinGW_32bit-Debug/../PhotoCollector/photocollectionmodel.cpp:64: undefined reference to `Exiv2::Value::toString[abi:cxx11]() const'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
mingw32-make[1]: *** [debug\PhotoCollector.exe] Error 1

I tried different constallations in the Qt qmake .pro file but to no gain.

win32: LIBS += -L$$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/lib/ -lexiv2.dll

INCLUDEPATH += $$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/include
DEPENDPATH += $$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/include

and

win32: LIBS += -L$$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/lib/ -lexiv2

INCLUDEPATH += $$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/include
DEPENDPATH += $$PWD/../../../../../Downloads/Exif/exiv2-0.26-mingw.tar/exiv2-0.26-mingw/dist/mingw/include

did not work, too.

Could someone be so nice and give me a hint, what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks,
Michael


Replies (5)

RE: Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT - Added by Robin Mills over 3 years ago

Michael

I have to admit to both a love of Qt and a dislike of MinGW.

I see you're getting undefined reference: Exiv2::Value::toString[abi:cxx11]() const and I'm wondering if building your application with C++11 when the library is built with C++98 is not possible. I've never thought about this combination. You can inspect entries in the library with the command:

471 -32- /usr/local/lib> nm -g --demangle libexiv2.dll.a | grep Exiv2::Value::toString
00000000 T Exiv2::Value::toString() const
00000000 T Exiv2::Value::toString(long) const
472 -32- /usr/local/lib>

I have investigated Exiv2+MinGW+Qt for users several times:
http://dev.exiv2.org/boards/3/topics/2705
http://dev.exiv2.org/issues/871
http://dev.exiv2.org/boards/3/topics/1304

There's an article about using MinGW+Exiv2
http://clanmills.com/exiv2/mingw.shtml

There is a sample application:
exiv2/contrib/cmake/mingw

RE: Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT - Added by Gilles Caulier over 3 years ago

More than one time i read weird reports about Qt + Exiv2 + Mingw from Exiv2 world...

How I can say... MinGW is certainly the best compiler that i know. And i know what i mean : I use it to package WHOLE digiKam installer for Windows, including last Qt5.10 + KF5 + All digiKam core 6.0.0 , and of course Exiv2 0.26.

But i don't use directly MinGw, but MXE cross compiler envirronement. It's a Jewel !

http://mxe.cc/

As you can see, MXE, as all that you need including Exiv2 package.

All source code are cross compiled under Linux. I don't use Windows to make the digiKam Windows installer. This take around 2 hours to buidl all from scratch on my host Linux computer (8 core, 32 Gb of RAM, SSD).

Remember : digiKam is more and less 1,5 M of lines of C++ code based on Qt5, and all compile, link, and run like a charm, under Windows 7, 8, and 10. You can debug under Windows using QtCreator at runtime.

https://www.openhub.net/p/digikam/analyses/latest/languages_summary

I cannot said better under MacOS (Macports) which is really a puzzle and a waste of time to maintain.

What's about MSVC : it's the most weird compiler and development env. that i need to use in my office where i manage around 250.000 line of code of C and C++ (Qt based). I don't want to use it about digiKam project, because it's a waste of time.

My scripts to compile and package digiKam for Windows under Linux using MXE :

https://github.com/KDE/digikam/tree/master/project/bundles/mxe

Best

Gilles Caulier

RE: Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT - Added by Michael Möllney over 3 years ago

Robin

sorry for the late reply.

Robin Mills wrote:

Michael

I have to admit to both a love of Qt and a dislike of MinGW.

I see you're getting undefined reference: Exiv2::Value::toString[abi:cxx11]() const and I'm wondering if building your application with C++11 when the library is built with C++98 is not possible. I've never thought about this combination. You can inspect entries in the library with the command: [...]

And thats probably it.
I found
Exiv2::ImageFactory::open(std::string const&, bool)
in the library using the nm tool you mentioned.

As far as I understood Qt 5.7 and newer need C++11 in the library so they probably bind agains the std::__cxx11::basic_string... so this may be it.

I think they still have a Qt 5.6 LTS (over 2 years old feature wise) and a toolchain with MinGW 4.9.2 around...

But maybe it is time to support the new C++11 abi in the precompiled versions.
Any chance to get a MinGW 5.3.x C++11 precompiled exiv2 download, maybe using the tools coming with the QtOnline installer?
That would be geat....

Kind regards,
Michael

RE: Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT - Added by Michael Möllney over 3 years ago

Hi Gilles

Gilles Caulier wrote:

More than one time i read weird reports about Qt + Exiv2 + Mingw from Exiv2 world...

How I can say... MinGW is certainly the best compiler that i know. And i know what i mean : I use it to package WHOLE digiKam installer for Windows, including last Qt5.10 + KF5 + All digiKam core 6.0.0 , and of course Exiv2 0.26.

But i don't use directly MinGw, but MXE cross compiler envirronement. It's a Jewel !

http://mxe.cc/

As you can see, MXE, as all that you need including Exiv2 package.

All source code are cross compiled under Linux. I don't use Windows to make the digiKam Windows installer. This take around 2 hours to buidl all from scratch on my host Linux computer (8 core, 32 Gb of RAM, SSD).

Remember : digiKam is more and less 1,5 M of lines of C++ code based on Qt5, and all compile, link, and run like a charm, under Windows 7, 8, and 10. You can debug under Windows using QtCreator at runtime.

https://www.openhub.net/p/digikam/analyses/latest/languages_summary

I cannot said better under MacOS (Macports) which is really a puzzle and a waste of time to maintain.

What's about MSVC : it's the most weird compiler and development env. that i need to use in my office where i manage around 250.000 line of code of C and C++ (Qt based). I don't want to use it about digiKam project, because it's a waste of time.

My scripts to compile and package digiKam for Windows under Linux using MXE :

https://github.com/KDE/digikam/tree/master/project/bundles/mxe

Best

Gilles Caulier

This is really interesting stuff.

At my company we cross-compile apps from linux to embedded linux and use VS to create windows GUI apps.
One gui in my team use MinGW to crosscompile his Windows Apps under linux. I will talk to him about how he manages to accomplish this. Maybe he even uses MXE but did tell me...

Thanks,

Michael

RE: Linking Problem with MinGW binary distribution and QT - Added by Robin Mills over 3 years ago

Michael

I built and distributed Exiv2 v0.26 MinGW binaries with C++98 and there is a simple test to compile code to link with Qt in the build. We will be adding support to build with C++11 in v0.27

We had an "Exiv2 Developer's Meeting" at my home in England last weekend. We discussed cross-compiling over lunch on Sunday. None of the three of us have ever done this. If you or your co-workers would like to work with me to get cross-compiling to work, I would appreciate your help.

I did try to install MXE on a VM running Kubuntu 16.04. After installing a couple of dependencies, the VM froze and would not reboot. I reverted to a snap-shot. I repeated the exercise with the same unsuccessful result.

Robin

    (1-5/5)