Using POSIX threads in Qt Widget App - qt

Question

I'm relatively new to both Qt and pthreads, but I'm trying to use a pthread to work in the background of basic test app I'm making. I'm aware of the Qt Frameworks own threading framework - but there's a lot of complaint surrounding it so I'd like to use pthread if possible. The code is as below
#include "drawwindow.h"
#include "ui_drawwindow.h"
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "QThread"
pthread_t th1;
DrawWindow::DrawWindow(QWidget *parent) :
QMainWindow(parent),
ui(new Ui::DrawWindow)
{
ui->setupUi(this);
}
DrawWindow::~DrawWindow()
{
delete ui;
}
void DrawWindow::on_pushButton_clicked()
{
pthread_create(&th1, NULL, &DrawWindow::alter_text, NULL);
}
void DrawWindow::alter_text()
{
while(1)
{
ui->pushButton->setText("1");
QThread::sleep(1);
ui->pushButton->setText("one");
QThread::sleep(1);
}
}
With the header
#ifndef DRAWWINDOW_H
#define DRAWWINDOW_H
#include <QMainWindow>
namespace Ui {
class DrawWindow;
}
class DrawWindow : public QMainWindow
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit DrawWindow(QWidget *parent = 0);
~DrawWindow();
void alter_text();
private slots:
void on_pushButton_clicked();
private:
Ui::DrawWindow *ui;
};
#endif // DRAWWINDOW_H
And I'm getting the error
error: cannot convert 'void (DrawWindow::*)()' to 'void* (*)(void*)' for argument '3' to 'int pthread_create(pthread_t*, const pthread_attr_t*, void* (*)(void*), void*)'
pthread_create(&th1, NULL, &DrawWindow::alter_text, NULL);
^
Does anyone know what is wrong?

Answer 1

TL;DR: The way you're using pthreads is precisely the discouraged way of using QThread. Just because you use a different api doesn't mean that what you're doing is OK.
There's absolutely no problem with either QThread or std::thread. Forget about pthreads: they are not portable, their API is C and thus abhorrent from a C++ programmer's perspective, and you'll be making your life miserable for no reason by sticking to pthreads.
Your real issue is that you've not understood the concerns with QThread. There are two:
Neither QThread nor std::thread are destructible at all times. Good C++ design mandates that classes are destructible at any time.
You cannot destruct a running QThread nor std::thread. You must first ensure that it's stopped, by calling, respectively QThread::wait() or std::thread::join(). It wouldn't have been a big stretch to have their destructors do that, and also stop the event loop in case of QThread.
Way too often, people use QThread by reimplementing the run method, or they use std::thread by running a functor on it. This is, of course, precisely how you use pthreads: you run some function in a dedicated thread. The way you're using pthreads is just as bad as the discouraged way of using QThread!
There are many ways of doing multithreading in Qt, and you should understand the pros and cons of each of them.
Thus, how do you do threading in C++/Qt?
First, keep in mind that threads are expensive resources, and you should ideally have no more threads in your application than the number of available CPU cores. There are some situations when you're forced to have more threads, but we'll discuss when it's the case.
Use a QThread without subclassing it. The default implementation of run() simply spins an event loop that allows the objects to run their timers and receive events and queued slot calls. Start the thread, then move some QObject instances to it. The instances will run in that thread, and can do whatever work they need done, away from the main thread. Of course, everything that the objects do should be short, run-to-completion code that doesn't block the thread.
The downside of this method is that you're unlikely to exploit all the cores in the system, as the number of threads is fixed. For any given system, you might have exactly as many as needed, but more likely you'll have too few or too many. You also have no control over how busy the threads are. Ideally, they should all be "equally" busy.
Use QtConcurrent::run. This is similar to Apple's GCD. There is a global QThreadPool. When you run a functor, one thread from the pool will be woken up and will execute the functor. The number of threads in the pool is limited to the number of cores available on the system. Using more threads than that will decrease performance.
The functors you pass to run will do self-contained tasks that would otherwise block the GUI leading to usability problems. For example, use it to load or save an image, perform a chunk of computations, etc.
Suppose you wish to have a responsible GUI that loads a multitude of images. A Loader class could do the job without blocking the GUI.
class Loader : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT
public:
Q_SIGNAL void hasImage(const QImage &, const QString & path);
explicit Loader(const QStringList & imagePaths, QObject * parent = 0) :
QObject(parent) {
QtConcurrent::map(imagePaths, [this](const QString & path){
QImage image;
image.load(path);
emit hasImage(image, path);
});
}
};
If you wish to run a short-lived QObject in a thread from the thread pool, the functor can spin the event loop as follows:
auto foo = QSharedPointer<Object>(new Object); // Object inherits QObject
foo->moveToThread(0); // prepares the object to be moved to any thread
QtConcurrent::run([foo]{
foo->moveToThread(QThread::currentThread());
QEventLoop loop;
QObject::connect(foo, &Object::finished, &loop, &QEventLoop::quit);
loop.exec();
});
This should only be done when the object is not expected to take long to finish what it's doing. It should not use timers, for example, since as long as the object is not done, it occupies an entire thread from the pool.
Use a dedicated thread to run a functor or a method. The difference between QThread and std::thread is mostly in that std::thread lets you use functors, whereas QThread requires subclassing. The pthread API is similar to std::thread, except of course that it is C and is awfully unsafe compared to the C++ APIs.
// QThread
int main() {
class MyThread : public QThread {
void run() { qDebug() << "Hello from other thread"; }
} thread;
thread.start();
thread.wait();
return 0;
}
// std::thread
int main() {
// C++98
class Functor {
void operator()() { qDebug() << "Hello from another thread"; }
} functor;
std::thread thread98(functor);
thread98.join();
// C++11
std::thread thread11([]{ qDebug() << "Hello from another thread"; });
thread11.join();
return 0;
}
// pthread
extern "C" void* functor(void*) { qDebug() << "Hello from another thread"; }
int main()
{
pthread_t thread;
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, &functor, NULL);
void * result;
pthread_join(thread, &result);
return 0;
}
So, what is this good for? Sometimes, you have no choice but to use a blocking API. Most database drivers, for example, have blocking-only APIs. They expose no way for your code to get notified when a query has been finished. The only way to use them is to run a blocking query function/method that doesn't return until the query is done. Suppose now that you're using a database in a GUI application that you wish to remain responsive. If you're running the queries from the main thread, the GUI will block each time the database query run. Given long-running queries, a congested network, a dev server with a flaky cable that makes the TCP perform on par with sneakernet... you're facing huge usability issues.
Thus, you can't but have to run the database connection on, and execute the database queries on a dedicated thread that can get blocked as much as necessary.
Even then, it might still be helpful to use some QObject on the thread, and spin an event loop, since this will allow you to easily queue the database requests without having to write your own thread-safe queue. Qt's event loop already implements a nice, thread-safe event queue so you might as well use it. For example, with a note that Qt's SQL module can be used from one thread only - thus you can't prepare QSQLQuery in the main thread :(
Note that this example is very simplistic, you'd likely want to provide thread-safe way of iterating the query results, instead of pushing the entire query's worth of data at once.
class DBWorker : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT
QScopedPointer<QSqlDatabase> m_db;
QScopedPointer<QSqlQuery> m_qBooks, m_query2;
Q_SLOT void init() {
m_db.reset(new QSqlDatabase(QSqlDatabase::addDatabase("QSQLITE")));
m_db->setDatabaseName(":memory:");
if (!m_db->open()) { emit openFailed(); return; }
m_qBooks.reset(new QSqlQuery(*m_db));
m_qBooks->prepare("SELECT * FROM Books");
m_qCars.reset(new QSqlQuery(*m_db));
m_qCars->prepare("SELECT * FROM Cars");
}
QList<QVariantList> read(QSqlQuery * query) {
QList<QVariantList> result;
result.reserve(query->size());
while (query->next()) {
QVariantList row;
auto record = query->record();
row.reserve(record.count());
for (int i = 0; i < recourd.count(); ++i)
row << query->value(i);
result << row;
}
return result;
}
public:
typedef QList<QVariantList> Books, Cars;
DBWorker(QObject * parent = 0) : QObject(parent) {
QObject src;
connect(&src, &QObject::destroyed, this, &DBWorker::init, Qt::QueuedConnection);
m_db.moveToThread(0
}
Q_SIGNAL void openFailed();
Q_SIGNAL void gotBooks(const DBWorker::Books &);
Q_SIGNAL void gotCars(const DBWorker::Cars &);
Q_SLOT void getBooks() {
Q_ASSERT(QThread::currentThread() == thread());
m_qBooks->exec();
emit gotBooks(read(m_qBooks));
}
Q_SLOT void getCars() {
Q_ASSERT(QThread::currentThread() == thread());
m_qCars->exec();
emit gotCars(read(m_qCars));
}
};
Q_REGISTER_METATYPE(DBWorker::Books);
Q_REGISTER_METATYPE(DBWorker::Cars);
// True C++ RAII thread.
Thread : public QThread { using QThread::run; public: ~Thread() { quit(); wait(); } };
int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
QCoreApplication app(argc, argv);
Thread thread;
DBWorker worker;
worker.moveToThread(&thread);
QObject::connect(&worker, &DBWorker::gotCars, [](const DBWorker::Cars & cars){
qDebug() << "got cars:" << cars;
qApp->quit();
});
thread.start();
...
QMetaObject::invokeMethod(&worker, "getBooks"); // safely invoke `getBooks`
return app.exec();
}

Answer 2

Change void DrawWindow::alter_text() to void* DrawWindow::alter_text(void*) and return pthread_exit(NULL);.