How to make a library with the installed layout looks like Qt's internal modules (a.k. QtCore, QtQml, ect.)?

Sauntor

Environment

CMake
Ubuntu 24.04
Qt 6.8.1/Online Installer

Case

I have wrote a an library named Demo, and it has some headers (i.e. welcome.h for class Welcome, etc) for the library users.

What I want?

when installed by cmake install, all headers keep the original case(all lower case) filename.
but I want get something like the QtCore. that is to say, the Demo library should be installed with a file tree like the following(which is the structure for qt internal modules like core, qml, widgets, etc.):

├── include
│   ├── Demo
│   │   ├──1.0.0
│   │   │   └── Demo
│   │   │       └── private
│   │   │           ├── welcome_p.h
│   │   │           ├── demo-config_p.h
│   │   ├──Welcome
│   │   ├──welcome.h
│   │   ├──DemoVersion
│   │   └──demoversion.h
├── lib
│   ├── cmake
│   │   ├── Demo
│   │   │   ├── DemoConfig.cmake
│   │   │   └── ...
│   ├── libWelcome.so.1.0.0
│   ├── ...
│   ├── pkgconfig
│   │   ├── DemoWelcome.pc
│   │   └── ...
│   ├── DemoWelcome.debug
│   └── ...
├── metatypes
│   ├── demo_debug_metatypes.json
│   └── ...
├── mkspecs
│   └── modules
│       ├── qt_lib_welcome.pri
│       └── ...
├── modules
│   ├── Welcome.json
│   └── ...
└── sbom
    └── demo-1.0.0.spdx

All in a word, how to make the library users use Demo like the way they use QtCore, for example:

In .cpp/.h file

#include <Demo/Welcome>
// or
#include <Welcome>

// BUT NOT LIKE THIS:
#include <demo/welcome.h>

In CMakeLists.txt

find_package(Demo 1.0.0)
target_link_library(myapp Demo::Welcome)

Tried solutions

I have tried qt_internal_project_setup() / qt_internal_add_module(), but it requires the project's major version must be same to Qt's major version, and it does not generate camel case wrappers for header files!

So, the question is:

I do not want to write any camel cased header wrappers manually, it should be auto generated, and how?
Or, is it possible to make my own library with the experiences same to the QtCore for the end users?

ChrisW67

@Sauntor said in How to make a library with the installed layout looks like Qt's internal modules (a.k. QtCore, QtQml, ect.)?:

All in a word, how to make the library users use Demo like the way they use QtCore, for example:

You cannot control how the users use the headers provided but you can give then the option of "clean" header names like <QWidget> the same way that Qt does it. The deployed headers files are:

- include
  - QtWidgets (directory)
    - QtWidgets (file)
    - QWidget (file)
    - qwidget.h (file)

The file "QWidget" simply contains:

#include "qwidget.h"

The file QtWidgets similarly includes all the headers for the entire module.

The qmake or cmake setup ensures that the include/QtWidget folder is added to the include path when the widget module is invoked (e.g. QT += widgets). The include folder is also present. So, the user can specify:

// found via the top level include path
#include <QtWidgets/QWidget>
#include <QtWidgets/qwidget.h>
// found via the QtWidgets include path
#include <QtWidgets>
#include <QWidget>
#include <qwidget.h>

To do this for your library you need to deploy at least the "clean" files.

I do not want to write any camel cased header wrappers manually, it should be auto generated, and how?

You only need to do this once and check it in to your source control. It's probably faster than trying to automate. As for how you could automate this; there's no magic bullet here.