Group

Groups files and other items in a product or module. More...

• List of all members, including inherited members
• Group is part of List of All Items.

Properties

• condition : bool
• excludeFiles : pathList
• fileTags : stringList
• fileTagsFilter : stringList
• files : pathList
• filesAreTargets : bool
• name : string
• overrideTags : bool
• prefix : string

Detailed Description

This item is attached to a product or module and used to group files and other items that have something in common.

Typical Uses of Groups by Example

Application {
    Group {
        name: "common files"
        files: ["myclass.h", "myclass_common_impl.cpp"]
    }
    Group {
        name: "Windows files"
        condition: qbs.targetOS.includes("windows")
        files: "myclass_win_impl.cpp"
    }
    Group {
        name: "Unix files"
        condition: qbs.targetOS.includes("unix")
        files: "unixhelper.cpp"
        Group {
            name: "Linux files"
            condition: qbs.targetOS.includes("linux")
            files: "myclass_linux_impl.cpp"
        }
        Group {
            name: "FreeBSD files"
            condition: qbs.targetOS.includes("freebsd")
            files: "myclass_freebsd_impl.cpp"
        }
    }
    Group {
        name: "Files to install"
        qbs.install: true
        qbs.installDir: "share"
        files: "runtime_resource.txt"
    }
}

Wildcards

When specifying files, you can use the wildcards "*", "?" and "[]", which have their usual meaning as in Unix Shell. By default, matching files are only picked up directly from the parent directory, but you can tell Qbs to consider the whole directory tree. It is also possible to exclude certain files from the list. The pattern "**" used in a pathname expansion context will match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories. For example:

        Group {
            name: "Word processing documents"
            files: ["*.doc", "*.rtf"]
            prefix: "**/"
            qbs.install: true
            qbs.installDir: "share"
            excludeFiles: "do_not_install_this_file.*"
        }

Attaching Module Properties to Source Files

Within a Group item, module properties can be attached either to all files in the product, or to only the files in that group. The following example demonstrates both:

Product {
    // ...
    Group {
        condition: project.hasSpecialFeature
        cpp.defines: "FEATURE_SPECIFIC"
        product.cpp.defines: "WITH_FEATURE"
        files: "feature.cpp"
    }
}

Here, the macro "FEATURE_SPECIFIC" will only be visible inside feature.cpp, whereas "WITH_FEATURE" applies to all source files in the product.

A group-level property binding starting with "product." is semantically equivalent to putting the same property binding without that prefix inside a top-level Properties item with the same condition as the group. The above example could therefore also have been written like this:

Product {
    // ...
    Group {
        condition: project.hasSpecialFeature
        cpp.defines: "FEATURE_SPECIFIC"
        files: "feature.cpp"
    }
    Properties {
        condition: project.hasSpecialFeature
        cpp.defines: "WITH_FEATURE"
    }
}

Obviously, the original variant is to be preferred, as it does not duplicate the condition and keeps related code close together.

It should be noted that there is a third way to write the same example, with a Properties item inside the group:

Product {
    // ...
    Group {
        condition: project.hasSpecialFeature
        cpp.defines: "FEATURE_SPECIFIC"
        files: "feature.cpp"
        Properties {
            cpp.defines: "WITH_FEATURE"
        }
    }
}

This construct just adds verbosity here, but might be useful in cases where the product-level property binding is dependent on an additional condition.

Attaching Module Properties to Generated Files

A group can also be used to attach properties to build artifacts such as executables or libraries. In the following example, an application is installed to "<install root>/bin".

Application {
    Group {
        fileTagsFilter: "application"
        qbs.install: true
        qbs.installDir: "bin"
    }
}

Groups in Modules

Groups may also appear in modules, which causes the respective sources to be added to the products depending on the said module, unless the filesAreTargets property is set.

Grouping Related Items

Groups can contain other items, namely Depends, FileTagger, Rule and Scanner items. They can also contain other groups, that is, they can be nested. The condition of a groups's child item gets logically ANDed with the one of the parent group. Additionally, if the child item is a group itself, the child group inherits the module properties and file tags as well as the prefix of its parent group.

Property Documentation

FileTagger JobLimit