If you use qmake to build your Qt based projects and at the same time the QtTest framework to write unit tests, you might have run into a strange behavior:

Generated Makefiles have an installs feature, which mainly is used on Unix like operating systems to install a previously compiled project. Normally you would expect the installs feature only puts your libraries and executable files into the target location. However, unit tests also get installed by default - which, usually, is not what’s wanted, right?

Fortunately, it’s quite easy to tell qmake not to install unit tests by default, simply add the no_testcase_installs configuration switch to your unit test’s .pro file:

TARGET   = my_unit_test
CONFIG  += console testcase no_testcase_installs
QT      += testlib
# ...

That should already do the trick ;-)

Martin Hoeher

I am a software/firmware developer, working in Dresden, Germany. In my free time, I spent some time on developing apps, presenting some interesting findings here in my blog.