How to build Google breakpad on Windows with Qt Creator (gcc/MinGW)?

Question

Given: Application project written for Qt Creator (4.7.4, Win32 only, gcc/MinGW).

Needed: Plug in well-known Google breakpad library to gather verbose crash dumps from customers.

My current findings are as follows:

• there is breakpad-qt project out there, about two years old. It contains subtree of upstream breakpad sources to be built with Qt Creator, so I've tried to produce working example by building it.
• breakpad itself inherently depends on DbgHelp.h from Windows SDK, because of usage of Microsoft minidump format.
• DbgHelp.h can be found in Windows SDK headers, but further includes some headers from Visual Studio, which are reportedly could not be compiled by GCC/MinGW (incompatible language extensions by MSVS compiler, I suppose).
• google breakpad includes MSVS solution files (produced by gyp), and is readily buildable by MSVS (I've succeeded with both 2008 and 2010 Express versions), producing some .libs to be linked with target application.
• but the .lib files compiled above are not understood by MinGW ld, so could not be linked with Qt project. It is known incompatibility of library formats.
• though, .lib files from MSVS 2008 (and not 2010) are understood by reimp tool from MinGW tools (latest available), which is intended to translate libraries from MSVS format to MinGW usable format. In my case the symbols are exported seemingly correctly, and some .obj files too, but recompiled library (with dlltool of MinGW) is still unlinkable by MinGW ld.
• And all the fuss with .lib linkage is blocked with another problem: valid headers are required in Qt Project in order to compile client code, and these headers are exactly those from breakpad, including DbgHelp.h, see above!

Currently open alternatives I see:

• Entirely switch the application from Qt/MinGW (Creator) to Qt/MSVS, which could allow direct linking of upstream breakpad. I think this is the core of success of little googleable use cases of Qt + breakpad at all.
• Construct some some hybrid approach, where application is built as usual with Creator and later linked with breakpad by MSVS linker. But again, headers!
• Tear off a minimal closure of what breakpad needs from Microsoft headers in order to compile with pure Qt Creator.

Any suggestions, existing experiences?

Answer 1

Sorry to disappoint you, but the QtBreakpad integration has not been developed for and tested with MinGW.