C++ Utilities: C++ utilities

C++ Utilities 5.34.0 Useful C++ classes and routines such as argument parser, IO and conversion utilities

Loading...
Searching...
No Matches
C++ utilities

Useful C++ classes and routines, such as an argument parser, I/O, and conversion utilities.

# Features

The library contains helpers for the following:

- Parsing command-line arguments and providing Bash completion.
  - Supports nested arguments.
  - Supports operations (no -- or - prefix, e.g., git status).
  - Can check for invalid or uncombinable arguments.
  - Can print help automatically.
  - Provides automatic Bash completion for argument names.
  - Allows customizing Bash completion for argument values.
- Dealing with dates and times.
- Conversion of primitive data types to byte buffers and vice versa (little-endian and big-endian).
- Common string conversions/operations, e.g.:
  - Character set conversions via iconv.
  - Split, join, find, and replace.
  - Conversion from number to string and vice versa.
  - Encoding/decoding base-64.
  - Building strings without multiple heap allocations ("string builder").
- Using standard I/O streams:
  - Reading/writing primitive data types of various sizes (little-endian and big-endian).
  - Reading/writing terminated strings and size-prefixed strings.
  - Reading/writing INI files.
  - Reading bitwise (from a buffer; not using standard I/O streams).
  - Writing formatted output using ANSI escape sequences.
  - Instantiating a standard I/O stream from a native file descriptor to support UTF-8 encoded file paths under Windows and Android's content:// URLs.
- Using SFINAE by providing additional traits, e.g., for checking whether a type is iterable.
- Testing with CppUnit:
  - Finding test files and making working copies of them.
  - Asserting standard output.
  - Various helpers.
- Building with CMake by providing some modules and templates.

Besides, the library provides a few useful algorithms and data structures:

- min(), max() for any number of arguments.
- digitsum(), factorial(), powerModulo(), inverseModulo(), orderModulo().
- Damerau–Levenshtein distance.
- N-dimensional array.

# API/ABI stability

The following applies to c++utilities and my other libraries unless stated otherwise:

- Different major versions are incompatible (API- and ABI-wise). Different major versions can be installed within the same prefix using the CMake variable CONFIGURATION_NAME (see the documentation about build variables mentioned below).
- Minor versions are backward-compatible (API- and ABI-wise) with previous ones within the same major version.
- Patch versions are interchangeable (API- and ABI-wise) within the same major/minor version.
- Some functions or classes are experimental. They might be modified in an incompatible way or even be removed in the next minor or patch release.

# Gathering logs and crash dumps

This section contains application- and platform-specific notes for gathering logs and crash dumps. It applies to c++utilities and other libraries and applications using it.

## Application-specific notes

- To view relevant logs of Syncthing Tray, increase the log level as needed by setting the environment variables mentioned in its documentation.

## Windows-specific notes

- Logs of GUI applications can be followed using the CLI-wrapper (the additional executable that ends with -cli.exe, e.g. syncthingtray-cli.exe).
- Crash dumps can be found under LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps unless configured otherwise. For applications that use the Go runtime (e.g. Syncthing Tray with the built-in Syncthing library enabled) one needs to set the environment variable GOTRACEBACK=wer as WER is otherwise disabled, check out the Go documentation for details.
- One can also configure the debugger for automatic debugging.

## GNU/Linux-specific notes

- Logs can be followed by starting an application from the terminal.
- Under systemd-based systems crash dumps can be accessed via coredumpctl (if the systemd-coredump service is installed and running).
- It is also possible to create a core dump of a running process using gcore.
- Install debug packages for producing better crash dumps if available.
  - The Arch Linux repository I provide contains debug packages via ownstuff-debug.
  - Some of the openSUSE and Fedora repositories I provide via OBS contain debug info packages.

## Android-specific notes

- Logs can be followed via adb logcat, Android Studio or viewed on the device itself via apps like Logcat Reader Professional.
- Crash dumps can be retrieved on a device via apps like Crash Log Viewer.

# Build instructions

These build instructions apply to c++utilities and my other projects that use it.

## Requirements

### Build-only dependencies

- C++ compiler supporting C++17, tested with:
  - g++ to compile for GNU/Linux and Windows.
  - clang++ to compile for GNU/Linux and Android.
- CMake (at least 3.17.0) and Ninja or GNU Make.
- cppunit for unit tests (optional).
- Doxygen for API documentation (optional).
- Sphinx with MyST-Parser for general documentation (optional, under Arch Linux, install python-myst-parser).
- Graphviz for diagrams in the API documentation (optional).
- clang-format and cmake-format for tidying (optional).
- llvm-profdata, llvm-cov, and cppunit for source-based code coverage analysis (optional).
- appstreamcli for validation of generated AppStream files (optional).

### Runtime dependencies

- The c++utilities library itself only needs:
  - C++ standard library supporting C++17, tested with:
    - libstdc++ under GNU/Linux and Windows.
    - libc++ under GNU/Linux and Android.
  - glibc with iconv support or a standalone iconv library.
  - libstdc++ or Boost.Iostreams for NativeFileStream (optional, use USE_NATIVE_FILE_BUFFER=OFF to disable).
  - Boost.Process for the execApp() test helper under Windows (optional, use USE_BOOST_PROCESS=OFF to disable).
  - libarchive (optional, for archiving utilities only, use USE_LIBARCHIVE=ON to enable).
- My other projects have further dependencies, such as Qt. Check out the README of these projects for further details.

## How to build

Generic example using Ninja:

cmake -G Ninja \
-S "path/to/source/directory" \
-B "path/to/build/directory" \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/final/install/location"
# build the binaries
cmake --build "path/to/build/directory"
# format source files (optional, must be enabled via `CLANG_FORMAT_ENABLED`)
cmake --build "path/to/build/directory" --target tidy
# build and run tests (optional)
cmake --build "path/to/build/directory" --target check
# build and run tests measuring test coverage (optional, must be enabled via `CLANG_SOURCE_BASED_COVERAGE_ENABLED`)
cmake --build "path/to/build/directory" --target coverage
# build API documentation (optional)
cmake --build "path/to/build/directory" --target apidoc
# install binaries, headers and additional files
DESTDIR="/temporary/install/location" \
cmake --install "path/to/build/directory"

This example is rather generic. For a development build, I recommend using CMakePresets as documented in the "[CMake presets](#cmake-presets)" section below. It also contains more concrete instructions for building on Windows.

### General notes

- By default, the build system will build static libs. To build shared libraries instead, set BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON.
- By default, the build system will prefer linking against shared libraries. To force linking against static libraries, set STATIC_LINKAGE=ON. However, this will only affect applications. To force linking statically when building shared libraries, set STATIC_LIBRARY_LINKAGE=ON.
- If thread-local storage is not supported by your compiler/platform (might be the case on macOS), you can disable making use of it via ENABLE_THREAD_LOCAL=OFF.
- To disable the use of std::filesystem, set USE_STANDARD_FILESYSTEM=OFF. Note that the Bash completion will not be able to suggest files and directories, and the archiving utilities cannot be enabled with USE_STANDARD_FILESYSTEM=OFF. Note that this will only help with c++utilities itself. My other projects might use std::filesystem unconditionally.
- To disable NativeFileStream (and make it just a regular std::fstream), set USE_NATIVE_FILE_BUFFER=OFF. This can be safely done when building c++utilities only for applications that don't use std::fstream anyway, such as Syncthing Tray. Then disabling makes sense to avoid depending on a libstdc++ vendor extension or Boost.Iostreams. Otherwise, disabling is not recommended as it will lead to the following limitations:
  - Error messages when opening files will not contain the cause of the error.
  - Opening files under paths with non-ASCII characters will not work on Windows.
  - Password Manager will not compile for Android.
- The Qt-based applications support bundling icon themes by specifying, e.g., BUILTIN_ICON_THEMES=breeze;breeze-dark.
  - This variable must be set when building the application (not when building any of the libraries).
  - The specified icon themes need to be installed in the usual location. Otherwise, use, e.g., BUILTIN_ICON_THEMES_SEARCH_PATH=D:/programming/misc/breeze-icons/usr/share/icons to specify the search path.
- For more details, check out the documentation about build variables (in the doc directory and in the Doxygen version accessible under "Related Pages").
- The PKGBUILDs repository contains build scripts for GNU/Linux, Android, Windows, and macOS X in the form of Arch Linux packages using ninja. These scripts can be used as an example also when building under/for other platforms.

### Windows-specific notes

- To create application icons, the tool ffmpeg/avconv is required.
- Windows builds are mainly conducted using mingw-w64/GCC/LLVM, so using them is recommended. Building with MSVC should be possible as well, but it is not as well tested.
- When using BUILTIN_ICON_THEMES, the icon theme still needs to be installed as if it were installed on a GNU/Linux system. So simply grab, e.g., the Arch Linux package breeze-icons and extract it somewhere. Do not use the package from MSYS2 or what comes with builds from KDE's binary factory.

### MacOS-specific notes

- To create application icons, the tool png2icns is required.
- Building for macOS X under GNU/Linux is possible using osxcross.
- macOS X builds are not tested regularly but should generally work (maybe with minor tweaks necessary).
- There is a Homebrew formula to build Tag Editor (without GUI).
- There are MacPorts packages to build Syncthing Tray.

#### Development builds

During development, I find it useful to build all required projects (for instance, c++utilities, qtutilities, tagparser, and tageditor) as one big project.

This can be easily achieved by using CMake's add_subdirectory() function. For project files, see the subdirs repository. For an example, see build instructions for Syncthing Tray or build instructions for Tag Editor. The subdirs repository also contains the script sync-all.sh to clone all possibly relevant repositories and keep them up-to-date later on.

For a debug build, use -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug. To tweak various settings (e.g., warnings) for development, use -DENABLE_DEVEL_DEFAULTS=ON.

### Using Visual Studio Code

The following sections document useful extensions. Most of them require the "VS Code Marketplace," which might not be available in all distributions of Visual Studio Code (e.g., when using the Arch Linux code package, one needs to install the code-marketplace package in addition).

Note that most of this has only been tested under GNU/Linux so far.

#### clangd

To use clangd via Visual Studio Code, install the extension and add -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=1 to the CMake arguments. Then link the compile_commands.json file from the build directory into the source directory. When using the subdirs project, you can create a symlink to the subdirs project in the individual projects (e.g., compile_commands.json -> ../subdirs/syncthingtray/compile_commands.json) and a symlink to the actual build directory in the subdirs project (e.g., compile_commands.json -> /…/build/presets/syncthingtray/arch-android-x86_64/compile_commands.json).

#### Building and debugging

Install the C/C++ extension from Microsoft. To avoid having to create manual build tasks and launch configurations, install the CMake Tools extension from Microsoft.

The Native Debug extension works as well.

Presumably, CodeLLDB (which also supports Rust) would work as well, but I haven't tested that yet.

The subdirs repository contains example configuration covering Syncthing Tray and a few other projects. It configures many tasks and launcher configurations for building and more manually. Not all projects and targets are covered, though. So it makes the most sense to rely on the CMake extension to configure and build the various projects (using presets, see the section below). A launcher config to launch the active/selected CMake target exists.

#### Qt

To work on my C++ projects that use Qt, it might be useful to install their extension pack. Compile the code with -DQT_QML_GENERATE_QMLLS_INI=ON for the QML language server to work.

The subdirs repository also contains a GDB init script and configuration for the C/C++ extension to make pretty-printing of Qt data types work in GDB using the printers from KDevelop.

### CMake presets

There are some generic presets available.

Use cmake --list-presets to list all presets. Note that some presets:

- are specific to certain Arch Linux packaging found in the AUR and my PKGBUILDs repository. Those presets start with arch-.
- are specific to certain build setups/toolchains under Windows. Those presets start with win-.

All cmake commands need to be executed within the source directory. Builds will be created within a subdirectory of the path specified via the BUILD_DIR environment variable.

The most useful presets for development are likely devel, devel-qt6, and debug. Note that the devel preset (and all presets inheriting from it) use ccache, which therefore needs to be installed.

Here is a simple example to build with the devel-qt6 preset:

export BUILD_DIR=$HOME/builds # set build directory via environment variable
cmake --preset devel-qt6 # configure build
cmake --build --preset devel-qt6 -- -v # conduct build
cmake --build --preset devel-qt6 --target check # run tests
cmake --build --preset devel-qt6 --target tidy # apply formatting

Note that these presets are supposed to cover all of my projects (so some of them aren't really making a difference when just building c++utilities itself). To use presets in other projects, simply symlink the CMakePresets.json file into the source directory of those projects. This is also done by the "subdirs" projects mentioned in the previous section.

After invoking the configuration via the command line, you can also open the project in Qt Creator and import it as an existing build (instead of adding a new build configuration).

#### Remarks about special presets

The presets starting with arch- are for use under Arch Linux (or an Arch Linux container). Do not use them unless you know what you are doing. When creating a normal build under Arch Linux, it is recommended to still use, e.g., devel-qt6.

Use the arch-android preset to cross-compile for Android using android-* packages (see the next section for details).

Use the presets starting with arch-*-w64-mingw32 to cross-compile for Windows (i686/x86_64) using mingw-w64 packages. Use the presets starting with arch-mingw-w64-clang to cross-compile for Windows (aarch64) using mingw-w64-clang-aarch64 packages.

Use the presets starting with arch-static-compat-devel to create a self-contained executable that is also usable under older GNU/Linux distributions using static-compat packages (see PKGBUILDs for details about it).

#### Remarks about building for Android

Note that this might not be necessary; one can usually develop and test most parts of the mobile UI of, e.g., Syncthing Tray natively on the development host thanks to the cross-platform nature of Qt.

I recommend building for Android under Arch Linux (or an Arch Linux container, see the last paragraphs of this section) using android-* packages found on the AUR and my binary repository. The commands in this section assume this kind of build environment. For building on Windows, check out the section "[Building under Windows for Android](#building-under-windows-for-android)" below.

First, create a key for signing the APK (always required; otherwise, the APK file won't install):

# set variables for creating a keystore and allowing androiddeployqt to find it
export QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH=/path/to/keystore-dir/$USER-devel QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS=$USER-devel QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_STORE_PASS=$USER-devel QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_KEY_PASS=$USER-devel
# create keystore (do this only once)
mkdir -p "${QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH%/*}"
pushd "${QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH%/*}"
keytool -genkey -v -keystore "$QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS" -alias "$QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS" -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000
popd

Note that QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH needs to point to a particular keystore file (and not the containing directory).

Example for building c++utilities, passwordfile, qtutilities, and passwordmanager in one step to create an Android APK for aarch64, assuming the required android-* packages are already installed:

# unset any potentially problematic Java options
export _JAVA_OPTIONS=
# configure and build using CMake presets and helpers from android-cmake package
source android-env aarch64
export BUILD_DIR=…
cd "$SOURCES/subdirs/passwordmanager"
cmake --preset arch-android -DBUILTIN_ICON_THEMES='breeze;breeze-dark'
cmake --build --preset arch-android
# install the app
adb install "$BUILD_DIR/passwordmanager/arch-android-arm64-v8a/android-build//build/outputs/apk/release/android-build-release-signed.apk"

If you run into an error because licenses are not accepted, you can accept them as described on the official documentation via sdkmanager --licenses. To make the accepted licenses available in builds via makechrootpkg, do the copying as mentioned in step three of the documentation, e.g. a call like this:

sudo rsync -aHP --mkpath /opt/android-sdk/licenses/ "$PATH_CHROOT"/arch-x86_64/root/opt/android-sdk/licenses/

To use a container, you can create a suitable image using the imgbuild script from the PKGBUILDs repo, see its README.

After creating a container from that image as is done in the example script from the PKGBUILDs repo you can install the required dependencies via pacman, e.g., for Syncthing Tray, one would install:

podman container exec -it archlinux-devel-container \
pacman -Syu clang ninja git extra-cmake-modules qt6-{base,tools,declarative,shadertools} android-cmake android-aarch64-qt6-{base,declarative,tools,translations,svg} go perl-yaml-libyaml

You use keytool from within the container in the same way as shown above:

podman container exec -it -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_STORE_PASS -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_KEY_PASS \
archlinux-devel-container keytool …

When setting the environment variables, make sure QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH points to the path of the keystore file within the container.

Then the build can be invoked like this:

podman container exec -it -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_STORE_PASS -e QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_KEY_PASS \
archlinux-devel-container \
bash -c '
cd /src/c++/cmake/subdirs/syncthingtray
source android-env aarch64
export BUILD_DIR=/build/presets
cmake --preset arch-android
cmake --build --preset arch-android'

You can also use adb from the container; see the examples in the PKGBUILDs repo.

##### Further details

- The Android packages for the dependencies Boost, Qt, iconv, OpenSSL, and Kirigami are provided on the AUR and by my PKGBUILDs repo.
- The latest Java version that is currently supported is version 17; see QTBUG-119223.
- Use QT_QUICK_CONTROLS_STYLE=Material and QT_QUICK_CONTROLS_MOBILE=1 to test the Qt Quick GUI as it would be shown under Android via a normal desktop build.
- One can open the Gradle project that is created within the build directory in Android Studio and run the app in the emulator.

#### Remarks for building on Windows

To create a development build on Windows, it is most straightforward to use the devel-qt6 preset. To create a debug build (e.g., to debug with GDB), use the debug-qt6 preset. Set the BUILD_DIR environment variable to specify the directory to store build artifacts.

I recommend conducting the build in an MSYS2 mingw64/ucrt64/… shell. There are different environments to choose from. I recommend UCRT64 for my projects, but MINGW64 will work as well. In theory, CLANG64 and CLANGARM64 will work as well, but libc++ is not tested as much (especially on Windows), so expect some rough edges. The 32-bit environments will not work for anything requiring Qt 6 or later.

Run the following commands to build one of my applications and its c++utilities/qtutilities dependencies in one go (in this example, Syncthing Tray):

# set prefix of package names depending on what env you want to use, see https://www.msys2.org/docs/environments
prefix=mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64 # in UCRT64 shell, recommended and used in all further examples
prefix=mingw-w64-x86_64 # in MINGW64 shell
prefix=mingw-w64-i686 # in MINGW32 shell
prefix=mingw-w64-clang-x86_64 # in CLANG64 shell
prefix=mingw-w64-clang-aarch64 # in CLANGARM64 shell
# install dependencies; you may strip down this list depending on the application and features to enable
pacman -Syu git perl-YAML-Tiny $prefix-gcc $prefix-ccache $prefix-cmake $prefix-boost $prefix-cppunit $prefix-qt6-base $prefix-qt6-declarative $prefix-qt6-tools $prefix-qt6-svg $prefix-clang-tools-extra $prefix-doxygen $prefix-ffmpeg $prefix-go $prefix-libarchive
# clone repositories as mentioned under "Building this straight" in the application's README file
cd /path/to/store/sources
...
git clone ...
...
# configure and invoke the build
cd subdirs/syncthingtray
cmake --preset devel-qt6
cmake --build "$BUILD_DIR/syncthingtray/devel-qt6" devel-qt6 -- -v

Run the following commands to build libraries individually (in this example, tagparser) and installing them in some directory (in this example, $BUILD_DIR/install) for use in another project:

# install dependencies
prefix=mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64
pacman -Syu git $prefix-gcc $prefix-ccache $prefix-cmake $prefix-boost $prefix-cppunit
# clone relevant repositories, e.g. here just tagparser and its dependency c++utilities
cd /path/to/store/sources
git config --global core.symlinks true
git clone https://github.com/Martchus/cpp-utilities.git c++utilities
git clone https://github.com/Martchus/tagparser.git
# configure and invoke the build and installation of the projects individually
cmake --preset devel-qt6 -S c++utilities -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$BUILD_DIR/install"
cmake --build "$BUILD_DIR/c++utilities/devel-qt6" --target install -- -v
ln -rs c++utilities/CMakePresets.json tagparser/CMakePresets.json
cmake --preset devel-qt6 -S tagparser -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="$BUILD_DIR/install"
cmake --build "$BUILD_DIR/tagparser/devel-qt6" --target install -- -v

Note that:

- Not all of those dependencies are required by all my projects, and some are just optional.
  - The second example to just build c++utilities and tagparser already shows a stripped-down list of dependencies.
  - Especially …-go is only required when building Syncthing Tray with the built-in Syncthing library enabled. To build in an MSYS2 shell, one needs to invoke, e.g., export GOROOT=/ucrt64/lib/go or export GOROOT=/mingw64/lib/go so Go can find its root.
  - All Qt-related dependencies are generally only required for building with a Qt GUI, e.g., Tag Editor and Password Manager can be built without a Qt GUI. The c++utilities and tagparser libraries don't require Qt at all.
- To run the binaries from the Windows terminal, you need to add the mingw-w64 libraries from the MSYS2 installation to the path, e.g., $Env:PATH = "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\ucrt64\bin" or $Env:PATH = "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\mingw64\bin".
- You can also easily install Qt Creator via MSYS2 using pacman -S $prefix-qt-creator. In Qt Creator, you can import the build configured via presets on the command line as an existing build. This also works for the MSVC build mentioned below. This way, not much tinkering in the Qt Creator settings is required. I had to set the debugger path to use GDB, though.
- You must not use the presets containing mingw-w64 in their name, as those are only intended for cross-compilation on Arch Linux.
- To run integration tests of Syncthing Tray, you need to have syncthing.exe in the PATH or set the SYNCTHING_PATH environment variable accordingly.

##### Building with MSVC

To build with MSVC, you can use the win-x64-msvc-static preset. This preset (and all presets inheriting from it) needs various additional environment variables to be set, and you need to install dependencies from various sources:

- MSYS2_ROOT and MSYS2_PREFIX: for Perl (only used by qtforkawesome so far), clang-format, Doxygen, FFmpeg, and Go (only used by libsyncthing) provided via MSYS2 packages; install the following packages:
  prefix=mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64 # see "Remarks for building on Windows" for details and other options
  pacman -Syu perl-YAML $prefix-clang-tools-extra $prefix-doxygen $prefix-ffmpeg $prefix-go
  - MSYS2_ROOT must be set to the main install directory of MSYS2 (that also contains all the executables for the different shells/environments).
  - MSYS2_PREFIX must be set to the prefix of the environment you want to use. That is one of the values mentioned in the "Prefix" column on the table of MSYS2 environments, e.g., MSYS2_PREFIX=/ucrt64 for the UCRT64 environment.
- MSVC_ROOT: for the compiler and stdlib, usually installed as part of the Visual Studio setup, e.g., C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.34.31933
- WIN_KITS_ROOT: for Windows platform headers/libraries, usually installed as part of the Visual Studio setup, e.g., C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10
- WIN_KITS_VERSION: the relevant subdirectory within WIN_KITS_ROOT, usually a version number like 10.0.22621.0
- QT_ROOT: for Qt libraries provided by the official Qt installer, e.g., D:/programming/qt/6.5.0/msvc2019_64
- QT_TOOLS: for additional build tools provided by the official Qt installer, e.g., D:/programming/qt/Tools
- VCPKG_ROOT: directory of the VCPKG checkout used for other dependencies; install the following packages:
  vcpkg install boost-system:x64-windows-static boost-iostreams:x64-windows-static boost-filesystem:x64-windows-static boost-hana:x64-windows-static boost-process:x64-windows-static boost-asio:x64-windows-static libiconv:x64-windows-static zlib:x64-windows-static openssl:x64-windows-static cppunit:x64-windows-static libarchive'[bzip2,crypto,zstd]':x64-windows-static

If the compilation of the resource file doesn't work, you can use -DWINDOWS_RESOURCES_ENABLED=OFF to continue the build regardless, as in the examples below.

When building with MSVC, do not use any of the MSYS2 shells. The environment of those shells leads to build problems. You can, however, use CMake and Ninja from MSYS2's mingw-w64 packaging (instead of the CMake version from Qt's installer). Then you need to specify the Ninja executable manually, so the CMake invocation would become something like this for UCRT64:

& "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\ucrt64\bin\cmake.exe" --preset win-x64-msvc-static -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM="$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\ucrt64\bin\ninja.exe" -DWINDOWS_RESOURCES_ENABLED=OFF -DQUICK_GUI=ON .
& "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\ucrt64\bin\cmake.exe" --build --preset win-x64-msvc-static

or for MINGW64:

& "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\mingw64\bin\cmake.exe" --preset win-x64-msvc-static -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM="$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\mingw64\bin\ninja.exe" -DWINDOWS_RESOURCES_ENABLED=OFF -DQUICK_GUI=ON .
& "$Env:MSYS2_ROOT\mingw64\bin\cmake.exe" --build --preset win-x64-msvc-static

To run the resulting binaries, you'll need to make sure the Qt libraries are in the search path, e.g., using $Env:PATH = "$Env:QT_ROOT\bin".

Note that you don't need to install everything Visual Studio has to offer. A customized installation with just C++ core features, MSVC x86/x64 build tools, the Windows SDK, and vcpkg should be enough. In Qt's online installer, you can also uncheck everything except the MSVC build of Qt.

##### Building under Windows for Android

Building for Android under Windows is still experimental and not regularly tested. It is generally supported by CMake, Android tooling, and Qt, though. So as long as all dependencies are installed correctly by some means, it is supposed to work. The following instructions describe how one could approach the installation of the required dependencies.

To build for Android under Windows, one needs to install the Android NDK and additional libraries depending on the concrete library/app and wanted features. To build anything that depends on Qt, one also needs the Android SDK and Qt for Android.

Install Android SDK and NDK

The easiest way to install the SDK is to install Android Studio. Its setup wizard allows you to install the SDK and other useful tools. The Gradle project files created by Qt can also be opened with it. This setup will also use the version of Java that comes with Android Studio.

The NDK needs to be downloaded separately.

Install Qt

The easiest way to install Qt is via the official Qt installer. The open-source version is sufficient, but a Qt account is required. Alternatively, you can also skip this step and install Qt like the other additional libraries as mentioned in the next section.

Install additional native libraries for Android

Additional libraries can be installed via MSYS2 using my Arch Linux packaging. Note that this is not generally required to build Syncthing Tray, as the use of libiconv, Boost, OpenSSL, CppUnit, and system SQLite3 is optional (so only Qt is required besides the C/C++ standard libraries). However, the following instructions and the CMake preset make use of MSYS2 and the android-cmake package. The OpenSSL package is also very likely wanted for TLS support.

To install additional libraries via MSYS2, add my Arch Linux repository to /etc/pacman.conf:

[ownstuff-msys2]
SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional
Server = https://ftp.f3l.de/~martchus/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://martchus.dyn.f3l.de/repo/arch/$repo/os/$arch
[ownstuff]
SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional
Server = https://ftp.f3l.de/~martchus/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://martchus.dyn.f3l.de/repo/arch/$repo/os/$arch

After following the instructions for importing my GPG key, you can install Android packages, e.g.:

pacman -Syu android-cmake android-{x86-64,aarch64}-{boost,libiconv,openssl,cppunit,sqlite}
````
You may also install Qt from my repo instead of relying on official Qt builds:

pacman -S android-{x86-64,aarch64}-qt6-{base,declarative,tools,svg,translations}

Note that when using Qt for Android from my repo, you also need to install a matching version of Qt for
Windows from the MSYS2 mingw-w64 repos for host tooling.
You may also install a few KDE libraries, like Kirigami:

pacman -S –assume-installed=android-{aarch64,x86-64}-qt6-{base,declarative,shadertools,svg,5compat} \ android-{aarch64,x86-64}-kirigami

You can leave out `--assme-installed=…` when you have installed Qt via `pacman` (instead of relying on
official Qt builds). When just using KDE libraries from my repo but Qt from the official installer, you
need to make sure that the installed version of Qt is at least as new as the version the KDE libraries
from my repo have been linked against.
The libraries will end up under `/opt/android-libs` within your MSYS2 installation. Do not install any non
`android-*-` packages, though. They will have file conflicts with packages provided by MSYS2 and are not usable
under Windows anyway.
To search for available Android packages on my repo per architecture, one can use, e.g.,
`pacman -Ss android-aarch64-`.
Whether builds using any of these libraries will actually work at runtime has not been tested yet.
</details>
<details>
<summary>Conduct build</summary>
Set the following environment variables:
* `ANDROID_HOME`: path to the Android SDK
* `ANDROID_NDK_HOME`: path to the Android NDK
* `ANDROID_TOOLCHAIN`: path to the Android toolchain (part of the Android NDK)
* `ANDROID_MINIMUM_PLATFORM=24`: set minimum platform to Android 7.0 in line with packages from my Arch repo
* `ANDROID_STUDIO_HOME`: Android Studio install directory (for adding Java to `PATH` and setting `JAVA_HOME`)
* `QT_PLATFORMS_ROOT`: directory containing Qt platform directories installed via the official Qt installer,
e.g., `D:/programming/qt/6.10.0` (not required when installing Qt for Android via my Arch repo)
* `QT_ANDROID_ARCH`: `x86_64`/`arm64_v8a`/`armv7`/`x86`
* `QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH`: path of the directory containing Android keystores
* `QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS`: name of Android keystore to use
* `QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_STORE_PASS`: keystore store password
* `QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_KEY_PASS`: keystore key password
* `MSYS2_ROOT`: install directory of MSYS2
Then the build can be conducted in an MSYS2 shell, e.g.:

source android-env x86-64 # or aarch64 cmake –preset win-android # to use everything from MSYS2 cmake –preset win-android-official-qt # to use Qt from QT_PLATFORMS_ROOT cmake –build –preset win-android # or win-android-official-qt ```

# Packaging

The repositories mentioned below contain packages for c++utilities itself but also for my other projects. For a more comprehensive list of repositories providing my other projects, such as Syncthing Tray, check out the README of those projects instead.

## Arch Linux package

The PKGBUILDs repository contains files for building Arch Linux packages of the latest release and the Git master.

PKGBUILDs to cross-compile for Android, Windows (using mingw-w64), and for macOS X (using osxcross) are included as well.

## RPM packages for openSUSE and Fedora

RPM *.spec files can be found at the openSUSE Build Service. Packages are available for several architectures.

There is also a subproject containing the builds from the Git master branch.

## Gentoo

Check out Case_Of's overlay or perfect7gentleman's overlay.

# Copyright notice and license

Copyright © 2015-2026 Marius Kittler

All code is licensed under [GPL-2-or-later](LICENSE).