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/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2016 The Qt Company Ltd.
** Contact: https://www.qt.io/licensing/
**
** This file is part of the documentation of the Qt Toolkit.
**
** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:FDL$
** Commercial License Usage
** Licensees holding valid commercial Qt licenses may use this file in
** accordance with the commercial license agreement provided with the
** Software or, alternatively, in accordance with the terms contained in
** a written agreement between you and The Qt Company. For licensing terms
** and conditions see https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions. For further
** information use the contact form at https://www.qt.io/contact-us.
**
** GNU Free Documentation License Usage
** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free
** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software
** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of
** this file. Please review the following information to ensure
** the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 requirements
** will be met: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html.
** $QT_END_LICENSE$
**
****************************************************************************/
/*!
\page deployment.html
\title Deploying Qt Applications
Deploying an Qt application does not require any C++
programming. All you need to do is to build Qt and your
application in release mode, following the procedures described in
this documentation.
\section1 Static vs. Shared Libraries
There are two ways of deploying an application:
\list
\li Static Linking
\li Shared Libraries (Frameworks on Mac)
\endlist
Static linking results in a stand-alone executable. The advantage
is that you will only have a few files to deploy. The
disadvantages are that the executables are large and with no
flexibility (i.e a new version of the application, or of Qt, will
require that the deployment process is repeated), and that you
cannot deploy plugins.
To deploy plugin-based applications, you can use the shared
library approach. Shared libraries also provide smaller, more
flexible executables. For example, using the shared library
approach, the user is able to independently upgrade the Qt library
used by the application.
Another reason why you might want to use the shared library
approach, is if you want to use the same Qt libraries for a family
of applications. In fact, if you download the binary installation
of Qt, you get Qt as a shared library.
The disadvantage with the shared library approach is that you
will get more files to deploy. For more information, see
\l{Creating Shared Libraries}.
\section1 Deploying Qt's Libraries
Unless Qt is part of the system libraries it must be redistributed
with your application. The minimum is to redistribute the run-time
of the libraries used by the application. However, with static linking,
the Qt run-times can be compiled into the executable.
In general, you should deploy all plugins that your Qt build uses,
excluding those that you have identified as unnecessary for your
application and its users.
For instance, you may need to deploy plugins for JPEG support and
SQL drivers, but you should also deploy plugins that your users may
require, including those for accessibility.
For more information about plugins, see \l{How to Create Qt Plugins}.
Applications using \l{Qt QML} also need to ship the
\l{All QML Modules}{QML modules} they use.
While deploying an application using the shared library approach,
you must ensure that the Qt libraries use the correct path to
find the Qt plugins, documentation, translation, and so on. To do this, you
can use a \c qt.conf file. For more information, see \l {Using
qt.conf}.
Depending on configuration, compiler-specific libraries must be
redistributed as well. For more information, see the
platform-specific application dependencies for
\l{Qt for Linux/X11 - Deployment#Application Dependencies}{X11},
\l{Qt for Windows - Deployment#Application Dependencies}{Windows},
and \l{Qt for macOS}{\macos}.
\section1 Licensing
Some of Qt's libraries are based on third party libraries that are
not licensed using the same dual-license model as Qt. As a result,
care must be taken when deploying applications that use these
libraries, particularly when the application is statically linked
to them.
For more information, see \l{Third-Party Licenses Used in Qt}.
Some configurations of QtNetwork use OpenSSL at run-time. Deployment
of OpenSSL libraries is subject to both licensing and export restrictions.
For more information, see \l{Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Classes}.
\section1 Platform-Specific Notes
The procedure of deploying Qt applications is different for the
various platforms:
\list
\li \l{Qt for Linux/X11 - Deployment}{Qt for X11 Platforms}
\li \l{Qt for Windows - Deployment}{Qt for Windows}
\li \l{Qt for macOS#Deploying Applications on macOS}{Qt for macOS}
\li \l{Deploying an Application on Android}{Qt for Android}
\endlist
\sa {Deploying Translations}
*/
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