Version numbering in Qt isn't such a git.

Warning: This is techy stuff. Those of a delicate persuasion (or those who have a life) should look away now...

Still there? No? I'll carry on anyway. In Qt, there's no out-of-the-box way of automatically identifying the version of a project. This could be useful for debugging purposes, for example. However, if you use source code control, you can achieve it easily.

I use Git as my SCCS, and I have adapted the solution I found on Qt Centre, which uses SVN. My version uses git describe, which outputs a string in the following format:


latest tag-number of commits since tagging-unique identifier of latest commit


The code goes in the .pro file of your Qt project, and is as follows:

# Create a macro from the Git describe command, to use in about boxes.BUILDSTR = '\\"$$system(git describe)\\"'
DEFINES += BUILD=\"$${BUILDSTR}\"

This code inserts the git describe string in a #DEFINE macro called build. Here I've used it in a function to display an about box:

void MainWindow::on_aboutButton_clicked()
{
// Display an About box. This uses the BUILD macro created from the // Git describe string in IRCBoilerplate.pro QString versionString = BUILD;
QString aboutString = "IRC BoilerPlate " + versionString + "\n ©2011 Mark Johnson.\nUses the Communi IRC library by J-P Nurmi et al.";
QMessageBox::about(this, tr("About IRCBoilerplate"), aboutString);
}

What's IRCBoilerplate? I'm writing an IRC client for my phone. IRCBoilerplate is a simple Windows IRC client I'm using to learn the nuances of the IRC protocol.