[Qbs] Qt.core.qtBuildVariant is not supported by this Qt installation

[Christian Gagneraud]

On 6 October 2017 at 04:02, Christian Kandeler <christian.kandeler at qt.io> wrote:
>> I think this CROSS_COMPILE is needed when running qmake from the
>> command line, but it should not be needed when using QtC kits.
>> I want to be able to quickly switch b/w kits, and i want the kits to
>> "obey" my choice of toolchains, i don't want them to rely on some
>> hard-coded absolute or relative path, or the PATH since i have to deal
>> with several version of "arm-linux-g++"
>>
>> This whole problem seems to be out of Qbs, nonetheless I think Qbs
>> should output a better diagnostic message in that case.
>
> Hi Christian,
>
> I've read this message now a couple of times, but I must admit I haven't grasped
> how any of that relates to the original problem. All I can say is that as far as I
> can tell from the code we use in qbs to set up Qt modules and from your original
> error message, it looks to me that qbs receives the information (from Qt Creator)
> that QT_CONFIG contains neither "debug" nor "release", and thus the list of
> supported build variants is empty. If that is the case (perhaps because Creator
> has concluded that the Qt version is not functional), then there is not much qbs
> can do about it.

Sorry for not being clear. Basically what i said was:
- With QtC, If your device mkspec is broken (a qmake/Qt thing), Qbs
will give you weird error messages.
- In my respect It shouldn't, because I'm aiming to control qbs
profiles from QtC, including cross-compile specifics of all sorts,
without Qt/qmake's assistance.
- This doesn't seem to be Qbs's fault (more like Qtc+Qt+qmake integration fault)
- The "Qt Online Installer" gives you the possibility to make some
developer's QtC "Build and run" settings appears read only
(auto-detected). Which is good as a sdk packager's safety lock. I
think Qbs profiles cannot be made read-only in QtC.
- I suggested that Qbs could maybe bail out earlier with a more
explicit error message.

The error message about "Qt.core.qtBuildVariant" was far away from the
"CROSS_COMPILE" problem in qt5/mkspecs/devices/mine/qmake.conf.
I'm not blaming Qbs, but suggesting that an early warning system could
have say something like:
warning : Qbs.profiles.<profile>.qt.sanity: something is weird.

Is it possible? Is it worth opening an issue?

Thanks,
Chris