QMake - how to copy a file to the output

You can use a qmake function for reusability:

# Copies the given files to the destination directory
defineTest(copyToDestdir) {
    files = $$1

    for(FILE, files) {
        DDIR = $$DESTDIR

        # Replace slashes in paths with backslashes for Windows
        win32:FILE ~= s,/,\\,g
        win32:DDIR ~= s,/,\\,g

        QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$QMAKE_COPY $$quote($$FILE) $$quote($$DDIR) $$escape_expand(\\n\\t)
    }

    export(QMAKE_POST_LINK)
}

then use it as follows:

copyToDestdir($$OTHER_FILES) # a variable containing multiple paths
copyToDestdir(run.sh) # a single filename
copyToDestdir(run.sh README) # multiple files

Here's an example from one of our projects. It shows how to copy files to the DESTDIR for Windows and Linux.

linux-g++{
    #...
    EXTRA_BINFILES += \
        $${THIRDPARTY_PATH}/gstreamer-0.10/linux/plugins/libgstrtp.so \
        $${THIRDPARTY_PATH}/gstreamer-0.10/linux/plugins/libgstvideo4linux2.so
    for(FILE,EXTRA_BINFILES){
        QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$quote(cp $${FILE} $${DESTDIR}$$escape_expand(\n\t))
    }
}

win32 {
    #...
    EXTRA_BINFILES += \
        $${THIRDPARTY_PATH}/glib-2.0/win32/bin/libglib-2.0.dll \
        $${THIRDPARTY_PATH}/glib-2.0/win32/bin/libgmodule-2.0.dll
    EXTRA_BINFILES_WIN = $${EXTRA_BINFILES}
    EXTRA_BINFILES_WIN ~= s,/,\\,g
        DESTDIR_WIN = $${DESTDIR}
    DESTDIR_WIN ~= s,/,\\,g
    for(FILE,EXTRA_BINFILES_WIN){
                QMAKE_POST_LINK +=$$quote(cmd /c copy /y $${FILE} $${DESTDIR_WIN}$$escape_expand(\n\t))
    }
}