Qt Core

The Qt Core module adds these features to C++:

  • a very powerful mechanism for seamless object communication called signals and slots
  • queryable and designable object properties
  • hierarchical and queryable object trees that organize object ownership in a natural way with guarded pointers (QPointer)
  • a dynamic cast that works across library boundaries

The following pages provide more information about Qt's core features:

Using the Module

Using a Qt module's C++ API requires linking against the module library, either directly or through other dependencies. Several build tools have dedicated support for this, including CMake and qmake.

Building with CMake

Use the find_package() command to locate the needed module component in the Qt6 package:

 find_package(Qt6 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core)
 target_link_libraries(mytarget PRIVATE Qt6::Core)

For more details, see the Build with CMake overview.

Building with qmake

If you use qmake to build your projects, Qt Core is linked by default.

Threading and Concurrent Programming

Qt provides thread support in the form of platform-independent threading classes, a thread-safe way of posting events, and signal-slot connections across threads. Multithreaded programming is also a useful paradigm for performing time-consuming operations without freezing the user interface of an application.

The Thread Support in Qt page contains information on implementing threads in applications. Additional concurrent classes are provided by the Qt Concurrent module.

Input/Output, Resources, and Containers

Qt provides a resource system for organizing application files and assets, a set of containers, and classes for receiving input and printing output.

In addition, Qt Core provides a platform-independent mechanism for storing binary files in the application's executable.

Additional Frameworks

Qt Core also provides some of Qt's key frameworks.

Reference

Module Evolution

Changes to Qt Core lists important changes in the module API and functionality that were made for the Qt 6 series of Qt.

Licenses and Attributions

Qt Core is available under commercial licenses from The Qt Company. In addition, it is available under free software licenses: The GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3, or the GNU General Public License, version 2. See Qt Licensing for further details.

Executables on Windows potentially link against The QtEntryPoint Library. This library is available under commercial licenses and also under the BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License.

Furthermore, Qt Core in Qt 6.7.2 may contain third party modules under the following permissive licenses:

BLAKE2 (reference implementation), version 54f4faa4c16ea34bcd59d16e8da46a64b259fc07

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal or Apache License 2.0

Data Compression Library (zlib), version 1.3.1

zlib License

Easing Equations by Robert Penner

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License

Efficient Binary-Decimal and Decimal-Binary Conversion Routines for IEEE Doubles, version 3.3.0

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License

KWin, version 5.13.4

BSD-3-Clause

KWin, version 5.13.4

BSD-3-Clause

MD4

Public Domain

MD5

Public Domain

PCRE2 - Stack-less Just-In-Time Compiler, version 10.43

BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License

PCRE2, version 10.43

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License with PCRE2 binary-like Packages Exception

QEventDispatcher on macOS

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License

Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-1

Public Domain

Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-3 - Keccak, version 3.2

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal

Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-3 - brg_endian, version https://github.com/BrianGladman/sha/ commit 4b9e13ead2c5b5e41ca27c65de4dd69ae0bac228

BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License

Secure Hash Algorithms SHA-384 and SHA-512

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License

SipHash Algorithm

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal

TinyCBOR, version 0.6.0

MIT License

Unicode Character Database (UCD), version 30

Unicode License Agreement - Data Files and Software (2016)

Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), version v44.1

Unicode License v3

extra-cmake-modules, version 5.84.0

BSD-3-Clause

extra-cmake-modules, version 5.84.0

BSD-3-Clause

forkfd

MIT License