- Qt 5.15
- Qt Core
- Plugin Classes
- <QtPlugin> - Defining Plugins
- Qt 5.15.18 Reference Documentation

# <QtPlugin> - Defining Plugins

The <QtPlugin> header file defines macros for defining plugins. More...

Header: | #include <QtPlugin>

## Macros

| Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE(ClassName, Identifier)
| Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN(PluginName)
| Q_PLUGIN_METADATA(...)

## Detailed Description

See also How to Create Qt Plugins.

## Macro Documentation

### Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE(ClassName, Identifier)

This macro associates the given Identifier (a string literal) to the interface class called ClassName. The Identifier must be unique. For example:

     #define BrushInterface_iid "org.qt-project.Qt.Examples.PlugAndPaint.BrushInterface/1.0"

     Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE(BrushInterface, BrushInterface_iid)

This macro is normally used right after the class definition for ClassName, in a header file. See the Plug & Paint example for details.

If you want to use Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE with interface classes declared in a namespace then you have to make sure the Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE is not inside a namespace though. For example:

     namespace Foo
     {
         struct MyInterface { ... };
     }

     Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE(Foo::MyInterface, "org.examples.MyInterface")

See also Q_INTERFACES() and How to Create Qt Plugins.

### Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN(PluginName)

This macro imports the plugin named PluginName, which corresponds with the name of the class that declares metadata for the plugin with Q_PLUGIN_METADATA().

Inserting this macro into your application's source code will allow you to make use of a static plugin.

Example:

     Q_IMPORT_PLUGIN(qjpeg)

Static plugins must also be included by the linker when your application is built. For Qt's predefined plugins, you can use the `QTPLUGIN` to add the required plugins to your build. For example:

     TEMPLATE      = app
     QTPLUGIN     += qjpeg qgif    # image formats

See also Static Plugins, How to Create Qt Plugins, and Getting Started with qmake.

### Q_PLUGIN_METADATA(...)

This macro is being used to declare meta data that is part of a plugin that instantiates this object.

The macro needs to declare the IID of the interface implemented through the object, and reference a file containing the meta data for the plugin.

There should be exactly one occurrence of this macro in the source code for a Qt plugin.

Example:

     class MyInstance : public QObject
     {
         Q_PLUGIN_METADATA(IID "org.qt-project.Qt.QDummyPlugin" FILE "mymetadata.json")
     };

See the Plug & Paint example for details.

Note that the class this macro appears on must be default-constructible.

FILE is optional and points to a json file.

The json file must reside in one of the include directories specified by the build-system. moc exits with an error when it could not find the specified file.

This function was introduced in Qt 5.0.

See also Q_DECLARE_INTERFACE() and How to Create Qt Plugins.