Package Directory

Installers contain components that are either embedded to the installer or loaded from a remote repository. In both cases, you need to use a file format and structure for the components that the installer can read.

Package Directory Structure

Place all components in the same root directory, which is called the package directory. The directory name acts as a domain-like identifier, which identifies all components. For example, com.vendor.root. The directory name must not contain : or - characters as those are reserved for separating the version number from the identifier.

Within the root directory, create subdirectories called data and meta.

A package directory can look as follows:

-packages
    - com.vendor.root
        - data
        - meta
    - com.vendor.root.component1
        - data
        - meta
    - com.vendor.root.component1.subcomponent1
        - data
        - meta
    - com.vendor.root.component2
        - data
        - meta

Meta Directory

The meta directory contains files that specify settings for deployment and the installation process. The files are not extracted by the installer. The directory must contain at least a package information file and all files that you refer to in the package information file, such as scripts, user interface files, and translations.

Package Information File Syntax

The package.xml file is the main source of information about a component. The following is an example of a package file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Package>
    <DisplayName>QtGui</DisplayName>
    <Description>Qt gui libraries</Description>
    <Description xml:lang="de_de">Qt GUI Bibliotheken</Description>
    <Version>1.2.3</Version>
    <ReleaseDate>2009-04-23</ReleaseDate>
    <Name>com.vendor.root.component2</Name>
    <Dependencies>com.vendor.root.component1</Dependencies>
    <Virtual>false</Virtual>
    <Licenses>
        <License name="License Agreement" file="license.txt" />
    </Licenses>
    <Script>installscript.qs</Script>
    <UserInterfaces>
        <UserInterface>specialpage.ui</UserInterface>
        <UserInterface>errorpage.ui</UserInterface>
    </UserInterfaces>
    <Translations>
        <Translation>sv_se.qm</Translation>
        <Translation>de_de.qm</Translation>
    </Translations>
    <DownloadableArchives>component2.7z, component2a.7z</DownloadableArchives>
    <AutoDependOn>com.vendor.root.component3</AutoDependOn>
    <SortingPriority>123</SortingPriority>
    <UpdateText>This changed compared to the last release</UpdateText>
    <Default>false</Default>
    <ForcedInstallation>false</ForcedInstallation>
    <ForcedUpdate>false</ForcedUpdate>
    <Essential>false</Essential>
    <Replaces>com.vendor.root.component2old</Replaces>
    <Operations>
        <Operation name="AppendFile">
            <Argument>@TargetDir@/A.txt</Argument>
            <Argument>lorem ipsum</Argument>
        </Operation>
        <Operation name="Extract">
            <Argument>@TargetDir@/Folder1</Argument>
            <Argument>content.7z</Argument>
        </Operation>
        <Operation name="Extract">
            <Argument>@TargetDir@/Folder2</Argument>
        </Operation>
    </Operations>
    <TreeName moveChildren="true">com.vendor.subcomponent</TreeName>
</Package>

Summary of Package Information File Elements

Component Dependencies

Components can depend on one or several real or virtual components. Dependencies are defined by using the component identifier and, optionally, component version. Use a dash (-) to separate version numbers from identifiers.

You can prefix version numbers with a comparison operator (=, >, &lt; (<), >= or &lt;= (<=)) to indicate that the version number of the package is compared to the required version and has to be equal to, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, or less than or equal to the version number specified in the dependency. If no comparison operator is given, it defaults to =.

Data Directory

The data directory contains the content that the installer extracts during the installation. The data must be packaged into archive files. This is either done automatically by binarycreator and repogen when creating an installer or a repository, respectively, or you can do this beforehand for more control.

For manual archive creation you can use either the archivegen tool that is delivered with the Qt Installer Framework or some other tool that generates archives in any of the file formats: 7z, zip, tar.gz, tar.bz2 and tar.xz.