Depends | Qbs Manual
Description: Represents dependencies between products and modules.

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- Qbs 3.1.1

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# Depends

Represents dependencies between products and modules. More...

- List of all members, including inherited members
- Depends is part of List of All Items.

## Properties

- condition : bool
- limitToSubProject : bool
- minimal : bool `(since Qbs 3.0)`
- name : string
- productTypes : stringList
- profiles : stringList
- required : bool
- submodules : stringList
- versionAtLeast : string
- versionBelow : string

## Detailed Description

A Depends item can appear inside a Product or Module item.

For example, the following product will load the cpp module. In addition, it will try to load modules that may or may not exist, and pass this information on to the compiler.

     Product {
         Depends { name: "cpp" }
         Depends {
             name: "optional_module"
             versionAtLeast: "2.0"
             required: false
         }

         Properties {
             condition: optional_module.present
             cpp.defines: "HAS_OPTIONAL_MODULE"
         }

         // ...
     }

## Dependency Parameters

Sometimes it is desirable to have certain dependencies handled differently than others. For example, one might want to depend on a dynamic library without linking it.

This can be done by setting the cpp.link dependency parameter to `true` in the dynamic library dependency:

     Product {
         Depends { name: "cpp" }
         Depends { name: "some_dynamic_lib"; cpp.link: false }

         // ...
     }

Dependency parameters are a special type of property that can only be set within Depends and Parameters items. Dependency parameters are declared in the modules they belong to.

In the example above, the cpp module declares the parameter `link`. The Depends item for `some_dynamic_lib` sets `cpp.link` to `false`, which tells the linker rule to ignore this particular dependency.

## Property Documentation

condition : bool

Determines whether the dependency will actually be applied.

Default: `true`

limitToSubProject : bool

If productTypes is set and this property is `true`, only products that are in the same sub-project as the product containing the Depends item are considered.

Default: `false`

minimal : bool `[since Qbs 3.0]`

Setting this property to `false` instructs Qbs to build the respective product only to the extent that is necessary for the depending product. Otherwise (the default), the dependency gets fully built. This property only has an effect if the user requested a subset of the project to be built (that is, the -p option is used), the dependency is not in that subset and no other product in the subset has a non-minimal dependency on it.

Default: `false`

This property was introduced in Qbs 3.0.

name : string

The name of the dependent product or module.

Default: Undefined

productTypes : stringList

A list of product types. Any enabled product in the project that has a matching type will become a dependency of the product containing the Depends item.

This property is mutually exclusive with the name and submodules properties.

The required and profiles properties are ignored if this property is set.

Note: This property does not work recursively. Consider this example:

     Product {
         name: "A"
         type: "x"
         Depends { productTypes: "someTag" }
     }
     Product {
         name: "B"
         Depends { productTypes: "x" }
     }

It is not guaranteed that `A` will show up in `B`'s dependencies.

Default: Undefined

profiles : stringList

A list of profiles.

If the dependency is on a product and that product is going to be built for more than one profile, you can specify here which instance of the product the dependency is on.

See the qbs.profiles property for more information. An empty list means a dependency on all instances of the product with the given name, regardless of their profile.

Default: Undefined

required : bool

Setting this property to `false` creates a soft dependency, meaning that it is not considered an error if the given module cannot be found. In such a case, an instance of the respective module will be created, but only the Module.present property will be available for querying, and it will be set to `false`.

Default: `true`

submodules : stringList

A list of submodules of the module to depend on, if applicable.

Default: Undefined

versionAtLeast : string

The minimum value that the dependency's `version` property needs to have. If the actual version is lower than that, loading the dependency will fail. The value consists of integers separated by dots.

Default: Undefined

versionBelow : string

A value that the dependency's `version` property must be lower than. If the actual version is equal to or higher than that, loading the dependency will fail. The value consists of integers separated by dots.

Default: Undefined

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