qt4-mac: qmake is in /opt/local/libexec/qt4/bin/qmake

[rickrich@…]

qmake is in /opt/local/libexec/qt4/bin/qmake:

$ ll /opt/local/libexec/qt4/bin/qmake 
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  5573924 Nov  8 11:47 /opt/local/libexec/qt4/bin/qmake

But there is no symlink to:

$ ll /opt/local/bin/qmake
ls: /opt/local/bin/qmake: No such file or directory

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

I believe that is intentional, so that the qt4-mac and qt5-mac ports do not conflict.

[rickrich@…]

I don't have qt5-mac installed, tho! Thus, it should be symlinked!

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Since there are ports for multiple versions of qt, none of them should install commonly-named binaries or other files. Instead, there should be a qt_select port to let you choose.

[RJVB (René Bertin)]

Replying to ryandesign@…:

Since there are ports for multiple versions of qt, none of them should install commonly-named binaries or other files. Instead, there should be a qt_select port to let you choose.

My Qt ports do provide the data required for qt_select (doh, the referred ticket is mine :)), but I've also submitted qtchooser which I think is preferable to port select. That's a port that will install qmake (and moc and uic and a bunch of other utilities) as a symlink to qtchooser-mp, which is itself a wrapper utility that proxies for any number of declared Qt installations. The port will declare the Qt 4 and/or 5 versions provided by MacPorts, and allows you to declare a default version.

Thus:

• qmake will invoke either /opt/local/libexec/qt4/bin/qmake or /opt/local/libexec/qt5/bin/qmake or whatever you have set the default to
• qmake -qt=qt4-mac will invoke the qmake binary from port:qt4-mac
• qmake -qt=qt5-kde will invoke the qmake binary from port:qt5-kde (shameless plug for a port I submitted)
• qmake -qt=my-own-Qt will invoke the qmake binary from an environment "my-own-Qt" that you've declared yourself by calling qtchooser-mp -install

That said, my own Qt ports also install the symlinks qmake-qt4 and qmake-qt5 into ${prefix}/bin, which already decreases the need one might feel for installing additional ports.

[michaelld (Michael Dickens)]

Given how old this ticket is, I'm closing. We're not going to symlink qmake as noted. If a user wants to do that, that's their choice. I do like René's solution of adding a special -qt flag. Given how few ports use qt4-mac, I don't think this really matters any longer. If anybody feels strongly about this issue, please reopen and give commentary & we'll reconsider.