How to properly use qmake's "system" command output

build, qmake, qt, qt4

Solution

The following commands work fine for me:

win32 {
    BUILD_TIME = $$system("time /T") # no spaces between 'system' command and args.
} else {
    BUILD_TIME = $$system("time")
}
message($$BUILD_TIME) # output the current time

Note, that I removed space between `$$system` and `("time /T")`

Problem

Such `qmake` project (*.pro) code successfully work under Ubuntu Linux, but under Windows 8 it don't: ``` win32 { BUILD_TIME = $$system ("time /T") } else { BUILD_TIME = $$system ("time") } message($$BUILD_TIME) # output the current time ``` The output is "time /T", i.e. command itself instead of command execution value. Is this behaviour a bug, or just i'm doing smth wrong? :) UPD: i've found the another way to obtain current date: `$$_DATE_`. However, i don't like to use undocumented feature - it is bad idea. P.S. My target is just to generate unique build ID string. I'm using Qt 4.8.5.

Original source