Qt Resource System

Introduction#

The Qt Resource system is a way to embed files within your project. Each resource file can have one or more prefixes and each prefix can have files in it.

Each file in the resources is a link to a file on the file system. When the executable is built, the files are bundled into the executable, so the original file does not need to be distributed with the binary.

Referencing files within code

Let’s say that inside a resources file, you had a file called /icons/ok.png

The full url of this file within code is qrc:/icons/ok.png. In most cases, this can be shortened to :/icons/ok.png

For example, if you wanted to create a QIcon and set it as the icon of a button from that file, you could use

QIcon icon(":/icons/ok.png"); //Alternatively use qrc:/icons/ok.png
ui->pushButton->setIcon(icon);