Qt novice: base class for QLineEdit and QTextEdit - qt

Question

Is there another class besides QWidget which holds all generic functions for both? Something like QEdit...
As an example I'd like to reference cut(), copy() and paste(), but it looks like I have to dynamic cast the QWidget. Is there any other way?

Answer 1

There is no other way besides QWidget. The reason is that QLineEdit is inherited directly from QWidget. You can see the full hierarchy of Qt classes here

Answer 2

You don't have to dynamic-cast anything: this is typically a sign of bad design. Qt generally has very few interface classes - they usually have the word Abstract somewhere in the name, and are not really pure interfaces as they have non-abstract base classes, like e.g. QObject. Thus there was no pattern to follow, and no need for abstracting out the edit operations into an interface.
There are several approaches to overcome this:
Leverage the fact that the methods in question are known by the metaobject system. Note that invokeMethod takes a method name, not signature.
bool cut(QWidget * w) {
return QMetaObject::invokeMethod(w, "cut");
}
bool copy(QWidget * w) {
return QMetaObject::invokeMethod(w, "copy");
}
//...
You can use the free-standing functions such as above on any widget that supports the editing operations.
As above, but cache the method lookup not to pay its costs repeatedly. Note that indexOfMethod takes a method signature, not merely its name.
static QMetaMethod lookup(QMetaObject * o, const char * signature) {
return o->method(o->indexOfMethod(signature));
}
struct Methods {
QMetaMethod cut, copy;
Methods() {}
explicit Methods(QMetaObject * o) :
cut(lookup(o, "cut()")),
copy(lookup(o, "copy()")) {}
Methods(const Methods &) = default;
};
// Meta class names have unique addresses - they are effectively memoized.
// Dynamic metaobjects are an exception we can safely ignore here.
static QMap<const char *, Methods> map;
static const Methods & lookup(QWidget * w) {
auto o = w->metaObject();
auto it = map.find(o->className());
if (it == map.end())
it = map.insert(o->className(), Methods(o));
return *it;
}
bool cut(QWidget * w) {
lookup(w).cut.invoke(w);
}
bool copy(QWidget * w) {
lookup(w).copy.invoke(w);
}
//...
Define an interface and provide implementations specialized for widget types. This approach's only benefit is that it's a bit faster than QMetaMethod::invoke. It makes little sense to use this code for clipboard methods, but it could be useful to minimize overhead for small methods that are called very often. I'd advise not to over-engineer it unless a benchmark shows that it really helps. The previous approach (#2 above) should be quite sufficient.
// Interface
class IClipboard {
public:
virtual cut(QWidget *) = 0;
virtual copy(QWidget *) = 0;
virtual paste(QWidget *) = 0;
};
class Registry {
// all meta class names have unique addresses - they are effectively memoized
static QMap<const char *, IClipboard*> registry;
public:
static void register(const QMetaObject * o, IClipboard * clipboard) {
auto name = o->className();
auto it = registry.find(name);
if (it == registry.end())
registry.insert(name, clipboard);
else
Q_ASSERT(it->value() == clipboard);
}
static IClipboard * for(QWidget * w) {
auto it = registry.find(w->metaObject()->className());
Q_ASSERT(registry.end() != it);
return it->value();
}
static void unregister(const QMetaObject * o) {
registry.remove(o->className());
}
};
template <class W> class ClipboardWidget : public IClipboard {
Q_DISABLE_COPY(ClipboardWidget)
public:
cut(QWidget * w) override { static_cast<W*>(w)->cut(); }
copy(QWidget * w) override { static_cast<W*>(w)->copy(); }
paste(QWidget * w) override { static_cast<W*>(w)->paste(); }
ClipboardWidget() {
Registry::register(&W::staticMetaObject(), this);
}
~ClipboardWidget() {
Registry::unregister(&W::staticMetaObject());
}
};
// Implementation
QMap<const char *, IClipboard*> Registry::registry;
static ClipboardWidget<QTextEdit> w1;
static ClipboardWidget<QLineEdit> w2;
void yourCode() {
//...
Registry::for(widget)->cut(widget);
}