Issue
I have a Qt application in Visual Studio 2005 which is linked using \subsystem:windows such that when I run the compiled executable it does not create a command line terminal, as well.
I would like to create a command-line mode: when I start it with the --nogui command line argument, then the GUI is not presented, but a simple command-line program is run. Since the linking uses /subsystem:windows, the command line mode doesn’t show any of the std::cout outputs unless I link my executable with \subsystem:console.
Is there a way to set the compilation/linking such that the same executable can either present the GUI windows or behave as a console application based on command-line parameters?
PS. I use Qt 4.2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 and the project is in C++.
Solution
I think the preferred technique for the situation here is the “.com” and “.exe” method. In Windows from the command line, if you run a program and don’t specify an extension, the order of precedence in locating the executable will .com preferred over a .exe file.
Then you can use tricks to have that “.com” be a proxy for the stdin/stdout/stderr and launch the same-named .exe file. This give the behavior of allowing the program to preform in a command-line mode when called form a console (potentially only when certain command-line arguments are detected) while still being able to launch as a GUI application free of a console.
There are various articles describing this, like “How to make an application as both GUI and Console application?” (see references in link below).
I hosted a project called dualsubsystem on google code that updates an old codeguru solution of this technique and provides the source code and working example binaries.
I hope that is helpful!
Answered By – gabeiscoding
Answer Checked By – Pedro (BugsFixing Volunteer)