Configure run fails with error about C++ not being found

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Symptom

When running the configure script

./configure --with-qmake=<path_to_qmake>/qmake --enable-qmake-config ....

to build Squish from sources the script aborts with either of these two errors

Checking for C++ compiler .........
Can't find any C++ compiler
Check config.log for details.

Checking for C++ compiler .........
Could not fetch C++ compiler via qmake.
Please verify if qmake works correctly outside of Squish.
Check config.log for details.

and an inspection of the config.log files reveals the following error details:

: Skipping qmake output: QMAKESPEC has not been set, so configuration cannot be deduced.
: Skipping qmake output: Error processing project file: qmdummy.pro
: qmake variable QMAKE_CXX not found in qmake output

Possible Cause and Suggested Solution

The error message points to a configuration problem of the Qt QMake tool. As of version 2 it should be able to report information like the C++ compiler needed to build applications with the installed SDK.

First suggested check: does the following invocation from the command line fail with an error or provide information about configuration parameters like QMAKE_MKSPECS?

<path_to_qmake>/qmake -query

Second check: does the directory stored in the QMAKE_MKSPECS variable exist on your system? If not, your Qt installation might have been relocated in a way that requires a configuration through the qt.conf file.