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Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference

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Even if the sender of the signal and the receiver of the slot are in different threads, we should still pass arguments by const reference. Qt takes care of copying the arguments, before they cross the thread boundaries – and everything is fine. Qt - Passing custom objects among threads. Details Category: Programming Written by Nandan Banerjee Hits: 13021 Communication between threads in a qt program is essentially done by using signals/slots. This is by far one of the most easiest and stable mode of communication amongst threads of a program.

This page was used to describe the new signal and slot syntax during its development. The feature is now released with Qt 5.

  • Differences between String-Based and Functor-Based Connections (Official documentation)
  • Introduction (Woboq blog)
  • Implementation Details (Woboq blog)

Note: This is in addition to the old string-based syntax which remains valid.

  • 1Connecting in Qt 5
  • 2Disconnecting in Qt 5
  • 4Error reporting
  • 5Open questions

Connecting in Qt 5

There are several ways to connect a signal in Qt 5.

Signal

Old syntax

Qt 5 continues to support the old string-based syntax for connecting signals and slots defined in a QObject or any class that inherits from QObject (including QWidget)

New: connecting to QObject member

Here's Qt 5's new way to connect two QObjects and pass non-string objects:

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Pros

  • Compile time check of the existence of the signals and slot, of the types, or if the Q_OBJECT is missing.
  • Argument can be by typedefs or with different namespace specifier, and it works.
  • Possibility to automatically cast the types if there is implicit conversion (e.g. from QString to QVariant)
  • It is possible to connect to any member function of QObject, not only slots.

Cons

  • More complicated syntax? (you need to specify the type of your object)
  • Very complicated syntax in cases of overloads? (see below)
  • Default arguments in slot is not supported anymore.

New: connecting to simple function

The new syntax can even connect to functions, not just QObjects:

Qt Connect Slot

Pros

  • Can be used with std::bind:
  • Can be used with C++11 lambda expressions:

Cons

  • There is no automatic disconnection when the 'receiver' is destroyed because it's a functor with no QObject. However, since 5.2 there is an overload which adds a 'context object'. When that object is destroyed, the connection is broken (the context is also used for the thread affinity: the lambda will be called in the thread of the event loop of the object used as context).

Disconnecting in Qt 5

As you might expect, there are some changes in how connections can be terminated in Qt 5, too.

Old way

You can disconnect in the old way (using SIGNAL, SLOT) but only if

  • You connected using the old way, or
  • If you want to disconnect all the slots from a given signal using wild card character

Symetric to the function pointer one

Only works if you connected with the symmetric call, with function pointers (Or you can also use 0 for wild card)In particular, does not work with static function, functors or lambda functions.

New way using QMetaObject::Connection

Works in all cases, including lambda functions or functors.

Asynchronous made easier

With C++11 it is possible to keep the code inline

Here's a QDialog without re-entering the eventloop, and keeping the code where it belongs:

Another example using QHttpServer : http://pastebin.com/pfbTMqUm

Error reporting

Tested with GCC.

Fortunately, IDEs like Qt Creator simplifies the function naming

Missing Q_OBJECT in class definition

Type mismatch

Open questions

Default arguments in slot

If you have code like this:

The old method allows you to connect that slot to a signal that does not have arguments.But I cannot know with template code if a function has default arguments or not.So this feature is disabled.

There was an implementation that falls back to the old method if there are more arguments in the slot than in the signal.This however is quite inconsistent, since the old method does not perform type-checking or type conversion. It was removed from the patch that has been merged.

Overload

As you might see in the example above, connecting to QAbstractSocket::error is not really beautiful since error has an overload, and taking the address of an overloaded function requires explicit casting, e.g. a connection that previously was made as follows:

connect(mySpinBox, SIGNAL(valueChanged(int)), mySlider, SLOT(setValue(int));

cannot be simply converted to:

..because QSpinBox has two signals named valueChanged() with different arguments. Instead, the new code needs to be:

Unfortunately, using an explicit cast here allows several types of errors to slip past the compiler. Adding a temporary variable assignment preserves these compile-time checks:

Some macro could help (with C++11 or typeof extensions). A template based solution was introduced in Qt 5.7: qOverload

The best thing is probably to recommend not to overload signals or slots …

… but we have been adding overloads in past minor releases of Qt because taking the address of a function was not a use case we support. But now this would be impossible without breaking the source compatibility.

Disconnect

Should QMetaObject::Connection have a disconnect() function?

The other problem is that there is no automatic disconnection for some object in the closure if we use the syntax that takes a closure.One could add a list of objects in the disconnection, or a new function like QMetaObject::Connection::require


Callbacks

Function such as QHostInfo::lookupHost or QTimer::singleShot or QFileDialog::open take a QObject receiver and char* slot.This does not work for the new method.If one wants to do callback C++ way, one should use std::functionBut we cannot use STL types in our ABI, so a QFunction should be done to copy std::function.In any case, this is irrelevant for QObject connections.

Retrieved from 'https://wiki.qt.io/index.php?title=New_Signal_Slot_Syntax&oldid=34943'

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Guide

Qt - Passing custom objects among threads

Details
Category: Programming
Written by Nandan Banerjee
Hits: 13034

Communication between threads in a qt program is essentially done by using signals/slots. This is by far one of the most easiest and stable mode of communication amongst threads of a program.

For example, let us suppose that one thread needs to send an integer value to another thread. All the programmer needs to do is simply create a dispatch signal with two arguments, the thread id and the integer value. Thus, it can be achieved by this simple line –

Similarly, a receive slot with the same arguments needs to be created to receive the signal.

Now, this will work very nicely when one is dealing with the predefined primitive or the qt data types. This is because they are already registered and hence it is not a problem for qt to recognise those data types.

The problem arises when one wants to pass a custom data type (any class or structure that has a public default constructor, a public copy constructor, and a public destructor can be registered). Then, the user defined class or a class defined in a library not part of qt can be passed using signals/slots after registering.

The qRegisterMetaType() function is used to make the type available to non-template based functions, like the queued signal and slot connections.

This is done in the following way –

where name can be any custom data type.

For example, let us take a program which will capture the image from the webcam and display it in a QLabel on the GUI. To achieve this, two approaches can be taken. Run the camera grabbing function in the main UI thread or in a different thread and reducing the work of the UI thread significantly. If it is run in the main UI thread, then the chances of the UI thread not responding is very high. Therefore, it is always desirable make a separate thread and use it instead to run the camera grabbing function.

In this tutorial, we will use the openCV library to grab an image from the webcam and use the signal/slot mechanism to send the image (IplImage type) to the UI thread.

After creating a new qtGUI project, a new class is created (say 'webcamThread') with QThread as its parent class. A run() function is defined and a new signal with the image as the argument is defined.

In the MainWindow file, a slot is defined to handle the signal from the webcamThread. This image is then converted to the QImage format and then displayed in the QLabel. So, a smooth and pleasant webcam feed can be achieved using this.

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Generator

Qt code for the webcam feed -

The openCV library needs to be present in the system and the paths should be appropriately set.

// webcamthread.h

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Sheet

// webcamthread.cpp

Now the code for the MainWindow. The signals are connected with the slots and the event handlers are defined.

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference

Old syntax

Qt 5 continues to support the old string-based syntax for connecting signals and slots defined in a QObject or any class that inherits from QObject (including QWidget)

New: connecting to QObject member

Here's Qt 5's new way to connect two QObjects and pass non-string objects:

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Pros

  • Compile time check of the existence of the signals and slot, of the types, or if the Q_OBJECT is missing.
  • Argument can be by typedefs or with different namespace specifier, and it works.
  • Possibility to automatically cast the types if there is implicit conversion (e.g. from QString to QVariant)
  • It is possible to connect to any member function of QObject, not only slots.

Cons

  • More complicated syntax? (you need to specify the type of your object)
  • Very complicated syntax in cases of overloads? (see below)
  • Default arguments in slot is not supported anymore.

New: connecting to simple function

The new syntax can even connect to functions, not just QObjects:

Qt Connect Slot

Pros

  • Can be used with std::bind:
  • Can be used with C++11 lambda expressions:

Cons

  • There is no automatic disconnection when the 'receiver' is destroyed because it's a functor with no QObject. However, since 5.2 there is an overload which adds a 'context object'. When that object is destroyed, the connection is broken (the context is also used for the thread affinity: the lambda will be called in the thread of the event loop of the object used as context).

Disconnecting in Qt 5

As you might expect, there are some changes in how connections can be terminated in Qt 5, too.

Old way

You can disconnect in the old way (using SIGNAL, SLOT) but only if

  • You connected using the old way, or
  • If you want to disconnect all the slots from a given signal using wild card character

Symetric to the function pointer one

Only works if you connected with the symmetric call, with function pointers (Or you can also use 0 for wild card)In particular, does not work with static function, functors or lambda functions.

New way using QMetaObject::Connection

Works in all cases, including lambda functions or functors.

Asynchronous made easier

With C++11 it is possible to keep the code inline

Here's a QDialog without re-entering the eventloop, and keeping the code where it belongs:

Another example using QHttpServer : http://pastebin.com/pfbTMqUm

Error reporting

Tested with GCC.

Fortunately, IDEs like Qt Creator simplifies the function naming

Missing Q_OBJECT in class definition

Type mismatch

Open questions

Default arguments in slot

If you have code like this:

The old method allows you to connect that slot to a signal that does not have arguments.But I cannot know with template code if a function has default arguments or not.So this feature is disabled.

There was an implementation that falls back to the old method if there are more arguments in the slot than in the signal.This however is quite inconsistent, since the old method does not perform type-checking or type conversion. It was removed from the patch that has been merged.

Overload

As you might see in the example above, connecting to QAbstractSocket::error is not really beautiful since error has an overload, and taking the address of an overloaded function requires explicit casting, e.g. a connection that previously was made as follows:

connect(mySpinBox, SIGNAL(valueChanged(int)), mySlider, SLOT(setValue(int));

cannot be simply converted to:

..because QSpinBox has two signals named valueChanged() with different arguments. Instead, the new code needs to be:

Unfortunately, using an explicit cast here allows several types of errors to slip past the compiler. Adding a temporary variable assignment preserves these compile-time checks:

Some macro could help (with C++11 or typeof extensions). A template based solution was introduced in Qt 5.7: qOverload

The best thing is probably to recommend not to overload signals or slots …

… but we have been adding overloads in past minor releases of Qt because taking the address of a function was not a use case we support. But now this would be impossible without breaking the source compatibility.

Disconnect

Should QMetaObject::Connection have a disconnect() function?

The other problem is that there is no automatic disconnection for some object in the closure if we use the syntax that takes a closure.One could add a list of objects in the disconnection, or a new function like QMetaObject::Connection::require


Callbacks

Function such as QHostInfo::lookupHost or QTimer::singleShot or QFileDialog::open take a QObject receiver and char* slot.This does not work for the new method.If one wants to do callback C++ way, one should use std::functionBut we cannot use STL types in our ABI, so a QFunction should be done to copy std::function.In any case, this is irrelevant for QObject connections.

Retrieved from 'https://wiki.qt.io/index.php?title=New_Signal_Slot_Syntax&oldid=34943'

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Guide

Qt - Passing custom objects among threads

Details
Category: Programming
Written by Nandan Banerjee
Hits: 13034

Communication between threads in a qt program is essentially done by using signals/slots. This is by far one of the most easiest and stable mode of communication amongst threads of a program.

For example, let us suppose that one thread needs to send an integer value to another thread. All the programmer needs to do is simply create a dispatch signal with two arguments, the thread id and the integer value. Thus, it can be achieved by this simple line –

Similarly, a receive slot with the same arguments needs to be created to receive the signal.

Now, this will work very nicely when one is dealing with the predefined primitive or the qt data types. This is because they are already registered and hence it is not a problem for qt to recognise those data types.

The problem arises when one wants to pass a custom data type (any class or structure that has a public default constructor, a public copy constructor, and a public destructor can be registered). Then, the user defined class or a class defined in a library not part of qt can be passed using signals/slots after registering.

The qRegisterMetaType() function is used to make the type available to non-template based functions, like the queued signal and slot connections.

This is done in the following way –

where name can be any custom data type.

For example, let us take a program which will capture the image from the webcam and display it in a QLabel on the GUI. To achieve this, two approaches can be taken. Run the camera grabbing function in the main UI thread or in a different thread and reducing the work of the UI thread significantly. If it is run in the main UI thread, then the chances of the UI thread not responding is very high. Therefore, it is always desirable make a separate thread and use it instead to run the camera grabbing function.

In this tutorial, we will use the openCV library to grab an image from the webcam and use the signal/slot mechanism to send the image (IplImage type) to the UI thread.

After creating a new qtGUI project, a new class is created (say 'webcamThread') with QThread as its parent class. A run() function is defined and a new signal with the image as the argument is defined.

In the MainWindow file, a slot is defined to handle the signal from the webcamThread. This image is then converted to the QImage format and then displayed in the QLabel. So, a smooth and pleasant webcam feed can be achieved using this.

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Generator

Qt code for the webcam feed -

The openCV library needs to be present in the system and the paths should be appropriately set.

// webcamthread.h

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Sheet

// webcamthread.cpp

Now the code for the MainWindow. The signals are connected with the slots and the event handlers are defined.

// mainwindow.h

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Sheet

// mainwindow.cpp

Qt Signal Slot Pass Reference Generator

In the UI editor, two buttons (Start and Stop) and a label of size 320 by 240 need to be created. Then, just compile and run. So, it can be seen that objects of the class 'IplImage' from the openCV library can be easily passed between the threads just by registering the class.





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