[QGIS-Developer] Building QGIS with Visual Studio 2019 CE and vcpkg
Uhrig, Stefan
stefan.uhrig at sap.com
Sun Jan 31 06:13:28 PST 2021
Install Visual Studio Community 2019: Select "Desktop development with C++" under "Workloads" and "C++ MFC for latest v142 build tools (x86 & x64)" under "Individual components". Verify that you install "Windows 10 SDK (10.0.18362.0)" or higher.
Install Git for Windows and Python 3.
Download https://sourceforge.net/projects/winflexbison/files/win_flex_bison3-latest.zip/download and extract it to a location of your choice (avoid space characters in the target path).
Follow the vcpkg "Quick Start: Windows" instructions at https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg#quick-start-windows. Make sure to execute the "vcpkg integrate install" command.
Install the required dependencies via:
vcpkg --triplet=x64-windows install exiv2 gdal gsl libspatialindex libspatialite libzip opencl protobuf qca qscintilla qt5 qt5-serialport qt5-location qt5-winextras qtkeychain qwt zstd
This may take a while as this creates a Debug and a Release build of each dependency from source.
Clone the QGIS repostiory. The path to the QGIS repository should not contain any space characters.
Start Visual Studio and open the QGIS CMakeLists.txt file via "File --> Open --> CMake...". This will start the CMake generation, which will fail. You will need several configuration rounds until everything is setup properly.
Let's start with a Release build because that requires less tweaking. Go to "Project --> CMake Settings". Delete the default configuration ("x64-Debug (default)").
Add a new "x64-Release" configuration and set "Configuration type" to "Release". Save the CMakeSettings.json file, which will start a new CMake generation. "FIND_FLEX" will fail, so you need to set the "FLEX_EXECUTABLE" path manually in section "CMake variables and cache". Browse to your win_flex.exe file. Additionally, disable "WITH_BINDINGS" and "WITH_QGIS_PROCESS". Save the file. Next set "BISON_EXECUTABLE" to your win_bison.exe file and save again. Disable "WITH_QTWEBKIT" and save. Set "QCA_LIBRARY" to "<vcpkg-root>\installed\x64-windows\lib\qca.lib" and save. Configuration should now succeed, but you have to change "GEOS_LIBRARY" from "geos.lib" to "geos_c.lib". Save and start the build after CMake generation has finished.
Select "qgis.exe (output\bin\qgis.exe)" as start-up item in the toolbar and start QGIS.
Now let's do the same for a Debug build. Add a "x64-Debug" configuration and save. Change to the "x64-Debug" configuration in the toolbar. Repeat the steps from above (set flex and bison paths etc.). When selecting libraries, take the libraries from "<vcpkg-root>\installed\x64-windows\debug\lib". Most libraries will have a "d" or "_d" as name suffix. The CMake generation will not always select the debug versions of libraries. Hence, go over the CMake variables and change release library paths to debug library paths, e.g. "<vcpkg-root>\installed\x64-windows\debug\lib\geos_cd.lib" for GEOS_LIBRARY. I'll append my CMakeSettings.json file as reference to this mail. Save again and start the build.
The build will fail because the execution of crssync.exe fails. That's because crssync.exe tries to load zstd.dll instead of zstdd.dll. I haven't figured out why, yet. An easy workaround is copying zstdd.dll to zstd.dll in QGIS\out\build\x64-Debug\output\bin. Then restart the build and it should succeed.
You should then be able to start and debug qgis.exe and its dependencies. Note that some vcpkg portfiles forget to copy over the .pdb files. For example, proj is affected. If you find such a library with a missing .pdb file, check whether the portfile (e.g. "<vcpkg-root>\ports\proj4\portfile.cmake") contains the "vcpkg_copy_pdbs()" call. If not, just add it at the end, re-install the dependency and copy over the .pdb file to the QGIS output directory.
I'm currently trying to get QGIS working with Python bindings. I got the build working, however I'm struggling with the debug build execution. The debug Python library seems to be unable to load the Release build Qt libraries that come with PyQt5. Well, I'll keep trying and if I succeed, I'll update the instructions.
Here is my CMakeSettings.json file for reference:
{
"configurations": [
{
"name": "x64-Release",
"generator": "Ninja",
"configurationType": "Release",
"buildRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\build\\${name}",
"installRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\install\\${name}",
"cmakeCommandArgs": "",
"buildCommandArgs": "",
"ctestCommandArgs": "",
"inheritEnvironments": [ "msvc_x64_x64" ],
"variables": [
{
"name": "WITH_BINDINGS",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "WITH_QGIS_PROCESS",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "FLEX_EXECUTABLE",
"value": "C:/src/tools/win_flex.exe",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "BISON_EXECUTABLE",
"value": "C:/src/tools/win_bison.exe",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "WITH_QTWEBKIT",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "QCA_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/lib/qca.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "GEOS_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/lib/geos_c.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
}
]
},
{
"name": "x64-Debug",
"generator": "Ninja",
"configurationType": "Debug",
"buildRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\build\\${name}",
"installRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\install\\${name}",
"cmakeCommandArgs": "",
"buildCommandArgs": "",
"ctestCommandArgs": "",
"inheritEnvironments": [ "msvc_x64_x64" ],
"variables": [
{
"name": "FLEX_EXECUTABLE",
"value": "C:/src/tools/win_flex.exe",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "BISON_EXECUTABLE",
"value": "C:/src/tools/win_bison.exe",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "WITH_QTWEBKIT",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "WITH_BINDINGS",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "WITH_QGIS_PROCESS",
"value": "False",
"type": "BOOL"
},
{
"name": "QCA_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/qcad.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "GEOS_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/geos_cd.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "GSL_LIB",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/gsld.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "GSLCBLAS_LIB",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/gslcblasd.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "PROJ_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/proj_d.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "QSCINTILLA_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/qscintilla2_qt5d.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "QTKEYCHAIN_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/qt5keychaind.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "QWT_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/qwtd.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
},
{
"name": "SPATIALINDEX_LIBRARY",
"value": "C:/src/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/debug/lib/spatialindex-64d.lib",
"type": "FILEPATH"
}
]
}
]
}
From: i-s-o <46.i.s.o.64 at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2021 5:58 PM
To: Uhrig, Stefan <stefan.uhrig at sap.com>
Cc: qgis-developer <QGIS-Developer at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [QGIS-Developer] Building QGIS with Visual Studio 2019 CE and vcpkg
I am very interested in trying out your solution. Could you share the required steps?
Thx.
On Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 09:25 Uhrig, Stefan <stefan.uhrig at sap.com<mailto:stefan.uhrig at sap.com>> wrote:
TL;DR: It is currently possible to build the QGIS core app with Visual Studio 2019 and vcpkg, which makes debugging QGIS dependencies easy.
Hi all,
Some time ago I discovered vcpkg (https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg). vcpkg is a package manager that downloads package source code to your local machine and builds the package locally. Recently, I discovered that vcpkg should be able to provide all dependencies to build at least the QGIS core application. Hence, I gave it a try.
Basically, it worked out of the box. I started with a fresh Windows 10 installation, installed Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition, Git, vcpkg, Python 3 and flex and bison for Windows. I fetched all other dependencies via vcpkg. It was not necessary to even touch a single file in the repository. I could just open the main CMakeLists.txt file in Visual Studio and only had to tweak the CMake cache (the CMake find macros that come with QGIS are not aware of vcpkg, so I had to set some paths manually). I had to switch off some extensions though as the required dependencies were not available via vcpkg (WITH_BINDINGS, WITH_QGIS_PROCESS, WITH_QTWEBKIT). The build did not report any errors, I could start the application and it seems to work, but I did some light testing only.
I mainly tried it because I enjoy debugging with Visual Studio more than with gdb (or gdb wrapped in some IDE). In my experience, the performance of the Visual Studio debugger is better and it is more stable, especially in long debug sessions.
I don’t want to promote official building support of QGIS with vcpkg. Providing the dependencies via OSGeo4W is much more reliable. However, if you don’t mind the experimental nature of this setup and you want to be able to debug into QGIS’ dependencies, you might give it a try. Especially, if you want to track the cause of a crash in one of QGIS’ dependencies, this setup might be helpful. You have the source code and debug versions of the dependencies, so the debugger will jump to the crashing code line and you can inspect all the variables of the dependency.
If someone is interested in trying it, give me a note. I can then assemble detailed instructions on how to make it work. It took me a while to figure out which packages are needed and how the CMake cache needs to be tweaked.
Best regards,
Stefan
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