Application crashing when searching for QLineEdit in QFormLayout - qt

Question

I've experienced a weird crash when trying to find a QLineEdit in a QFormLayout.
Firstly, I created a QFormLayout and set a name for it:
QFormLayout *charColLayout = new QFormLayout; charColLayout->setObjectName("charColLayout");
Then, I created a QLineEdit, modified it a bit and add it in to the layout, and I also give it a name:
QLineEdit *delim = new QLineEdit;
delim->setMaxLength(1);
delim->setMaximumWidth(100);
delim->setText("/");
delim->setObjectName("delEdit");
charColLayout->addRow("Delimiter", delim);
Afterward, in a completely different function, I re-searched that layout with findChild():
QFormLayout *charcoal = secondHoriField->findChild<QFormLayout *>("charColLayout", Qt::FindChildrenRecursively);
It should be noted that secondHoriField is just a normal QLayout which my QFormLayout is located in.
Finally, I attempted to find that QLineEdit:
QLineEdit *delimEdit = charcoal->findChild<QLineEdit*>("delEdit", Qt::FindChildrenRecursively);
if (delimEdit == nullptr) {cerr << "error\n";} //debug
string curDelim = qStrToStr(delimEdit->text());
And it surprisingly came down with a crash, and as the output shown, it's because the delimEdit is null.
18:06:10: Starting D:\...\build-cryptog-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MinGW_64_bit-Debug\debug\cryptog.exe ...
error
18:06:17: The program has unexpectedly finished.
18:06:17: The process was ended forcefully.
18:06:17: D:\...\build-cryptog-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MinGW_64_bit-Debug\debug\cryptog.exe crashed.
But when I switched the findChild() function for this rather bruteforce-y line:
QLineEdit *delimEdit = dynamic_cast<QLineEdit*>(charcoal->itemAt(1)->widget());
cerr << qStrToStr(delimEdit->objectName()) << endl; //debug line
The program ran fine, and it showed the same name I set for the QLineEdit:
18:12:02: Starting D:\...\build-cryptog-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MinGW_64_bit-Debug\debug\cryptog.exe ...
delEdit
18:12:11: D:\...\build-cryptog-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MinGW_64_bit-Debug\debug\cryptog.exe exited with code 0
Why did this happened?
Another note: qStrToStr() is a function I implement to convert QString to std::string, and I have hand-checked it.

Answer 1

While findChild is a QObject method the itemAt is a QFormLayout method.
QObject::findChild
QFormLayout::itemAt
With addRow you add an item to the QFormLayout. This does not make it a child in the context of the QObject.
QFormLayout::addRow
The purpose of the QFormLayout is to organize the positioning of QWidgets, it is not meant to serve as a container. Maybe you could check whether the top level QWidget (e.g. QMainWindow) holding the QFormLayout would be a better choice as a parent for the QLineEdit.
Assuming you have some kind of QMainWindow:
QMainWindow myMainWindow;
// ...
QLineEdit *delim = new QLineEdit(&myMainWindow);
delim->setObjectName("delEdit");
//...
In another location:
auto delimEdit = myMainWindow.findChild<QLineEdit*>("delEdit");