Where are variables such as $(MKDIR) and $(COPY_DIR) defined?

qmake, qt-creator

Solution

Before a .pro file is processed and your Makefiles are generated by qmake several other files are pre-processed based on your compiler and platform. These files have the extension .prf and .conf and are loaded from a directory called mkspecs.

The values of MKDIR and COPY_DIR variables in your Makefiles are generated by the values of QMAKE_MKDIR and QMAKE_COPY_DIR variables defined in the following files:

C:\Qt\Qt5.0.2\5.0.2\msvc2010\mkspecs\common\shell-unix.conf:

QMAKE_TAR              = tar -cf
QMAKE_GZIP             = gzip -9f

QMAKE_COPY             = cp -f
QMAKE_COPY_FILE        = $$QMAKE_COPY
QMAKE_COPY_DIR         = $$QMAKE_COPY -R
QMAKE_MOVE             = mv -f
QMAKE_DEL_FILE         = rm -f
QMAKE_DEL_DIR          = rmdir
QMAKE_CHK_EXISTS       = test -e %1 ||
QMAKE_CHK_DIR_EXISTS   = test -d    # legacy
QMAKE_MKDIR            = mkdir -p   # legacy
QMAKE_MKDIR_CMD        = test -d %1 || mkdir -p %1
QMAKE_STREAM_EDITOR    = sed

C:\Qt\Qt5.0.2\5.0.2\msvc2010\mkspecs\common\shell-win32.conf:

QMAKE_ZIP              = zip -r -9

QMAKE_COPY             = copy /y
QMAKE_COPY_DIR         = xcopy /s /q /y /i
QMAKE_MOVE             = move
QMAKE_DEL_FILE         = del
QMAKE_DEL_DIR          = rmdir
QMAKE_CHK_EXISTS       = if not exist %1
QMAKE_CHK_DIR_EXISTS   = if not exist   # legacy
QMAKE_MKDIR            = mkdir          # legacy
QMAKE_MKDIR_CMD        = if not exist %1 mkdir %1 & if not exist %1 exit 1

# xcopy copies the contained files if source is a directory. Deal with it.
CONFIG += copy_dir_files

(As you can see I am using Qt 5.0.2 so the path might be different on your machine.)

Problem

I am trying to get hold of the values these variables contain but I couldn't find any informations about them on the web and searching for such strings in C:\Qt folder brought up nothing. Where are these variables defined ?

Original source