My app is waiting on a thread to finish. When the thread finishes its thing, I want to update the GUI. The GUI thread is blocked in xcb_wait_for_event().
Is this possible with XCB? How does Qt, GTK, FLTK etc. implement this basic GUI problem in terms of the XCB API?
In Qt, you should connect a (queued) signal emitted by your thread to a slot on a GUI thread object. The slot invocation is then processed by the event loop, just like the spontaneous events from e.g. user input.
From Maya Posch's excellent article on using QThread:
class Worker : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT
public:
Worker();
~Worker();
public slots:
void process();
signals:
void finished();
void error(QString err);
private:
// add your variables here
};
void Worker::process() {
// allocate resources using new here
qDebug("Hello World!");
emit finished();
}
In the GUI thread:
QThread* thread = new QThread;
Worker* worker = new Worker();
worker->moveToThread(thread);
connect(worker, SIGNAL(error(QString)), this, SLOT(errorString(QString)));
connect(thread, SIGNAL(started()), worker, SLOT(process()));
connect(worker, SIGNAL(finished()), thread, SLOT(quit()));
connect(worker, SIGNAL(finished()), worker, SLOT(deleteLater()));
connect(thread, SIGNAL(finished()), thread, SLOT(deleteLater()));
thread->start();
The line you are interested in is
connect(worker, SIGNAL(error(QString)), this, SLOT(errorString(QString)));
Now go and read How To Really, Truly Use QThreads; The Full Explanation.
The way it works in Qt appears to be that the xcb_wait_for_event() runs repeatedly in a thread of its own. Each time it receives an event, it posts a message on the QApplication's shared message queue. User threads may also add messages to the QApplication's shared message queue, by means of queued signals (see my other answer).
The user application can now read events from the shared message queue (e.g. using qApp->exec()) and receive a mixture of spontaneous UI events and internal signals from other threads.
For more reading, I suggest the Qt5 sources, beginning with src/plugins/platforms/xcb/qxcbconnection.cpp - look at QXcbEventReader::run.
stackoverflow.com/questions/8794089/how-to-send-key-event-to-application-using-xcb
Note the warning of a potential security how, and a way to use xtest to avoid it. I wonder if you might rather wait on a signal? They aren't as scary and mysterious they seem to the uniniated. There's a great book by Michael Kerrisk:The Linux Programming Interface A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook which explains about it.
Related
For example:
void MainWidget::testThreadTask()
{
qDebug() << "On test task";
}
void MainWidget::onBtnClick()
{
QThread *thread = new QThread;
connect(thread, QThread::started, this, testThreadTask);
thread->start();
qDebug() << "Thread START, now we wait 5s";
QElapsedTimer timer;
timer.start();
while (timer.elapsed() < 5000)
{
}
qDebug() << "END";
}
The program output is:
START wait 5s
END
On test task
I want to create a task to handle something after the button is pressed, and then the function will wait for the task to complete before returning.
In fact, it may not be necessary to create a new task and wait for it to execute, because since you have to wait and get stuck there, why not run it directly in the function.
But this is actually a problem when I deal with QT serial data. I want to send the data to the serial port after pressing the button, and then wait for the data (by constantly reading), but I find that when I have been waiting, the serial port can not read the data at all, only when I exit the function the serial port can read the data.
Is there any way to deal with serial data sending and receiving synchronization?
void MainWidget::onBtnClick()
{
serial->write("Test");
if (serial->bytesAvailable())
{
QByteArray data = serialIo->readAll();
// handle the data
}
}
You are mistaken with what is happening in your application. I suggest you read Threads and QObjects (the entire page), Qt::ConnectionType and the detailed description of QThread.
What is happening to you is:
MainWidget does not live in thread. For the slot of a regular object to be called from thread, it first needs to be moved to that thread.Note that subclasses of QWidget cannot be moved to another thread. Because some OS supported by Qt limit where windows can live, they made the choice to force all QWidget to stay in the main thread, in all OS Qt can execute on.
When you connect thread to this (which BTW is incorrect in your question, it should have been with ampersands connect(thread, &QThread::started, this, &MainWidget::testThreadTask);), you create a queued connection, even though the thread has not technically started yet.
When you start the thread:
It fires its started signal.
Because the connection is a Qt::QueuedConnection, the slot will only be executed after returning to the main thread's event loop, i.e. some time after returning from onBtnClick.
Notes:
You would have more useful information in qDebug() about the threads running your code by using QThread::currentThread().Even better than that, your IDE should provide you a window specifically to see what thread has reached a breakpoint (Ctrl+Alt+H on Visual Studio).
At the risk of insisting, keep in mind this warning from the Qt help:
Be aware that using direct connections when the sender and receiver live in different threads is unsafe if an event loop is running in the receiver's thread, for the same reason that calling any function on an object living in another thread is unsafe.
With that said, because you wait 5 seconds before returning to the event loop and because it is only test code (= there should be no bug + it does not matter even if there is one), you should try to create a Qt::DirectConnection, just to see the slot be invoked from the worker thread.
The detailed description of QThread (link above) shows a complete working example of a worker object being moved to the new thread before it is started. The point is:
A worker object is created, then moved to the worker thread.
Connections are created for the controller to send QString to the worker object via signal/slot and for the worker object to return result to the controller via signal/slot too.
All these connections are Qt::QueuedConnection by default since the worker object was moved.
The worker thread is started. Since run was not overriden, it starts an event loop (in exec).
And there you have it.
Remember 1 things: widgets cannot be moved!!! Create your own worker object.
Brief of environment:
I have a device on which runs an application written in qt. It has a main thread which handles Database operations (SQlite) and a separate thread for networking operations (via 3G).
Mains thread Event loop is ran by QCoreApplication::exec and the other thread which handles networking operations is ran by QThread::exec. Btw, socket thread affinity is changed after it's started (Eg. moveToThread(socketThreadPtr))
Brief of problem:
Main thread is busy in a loop, in order to select around 10k records from database and that loop takes about +30 seconds. In the network thread there is a 15 seconds timer which has to send a keep alive message each time expires. The problem is that the slot for timeout() signal is executed only after the loop is finished.
Solution founded until now(but not satisfying):
If I call QCoreApplication::processEvents in the loop that selects the records, problem is solved, but I wonder if a solution exists instead of this workaround.
Remark:
The timer, signal and slot, which gives the command to send the keep alive message is currently handled in the main thread( but the read/write happens in the network thread). Also, I moved the timer on the network thread but I got the same result as being on the main thread.
You have to create timer in your network thread, maybe Qtimer is a member of network thread, so the network thread will be constructed in main thread and thread affinity of its children's
set to main thread, next you have moved network thread to new Qthread, but what about Qtimer? it still lives in main thread (except when you explicitly define network class as it's parent, so as you said moveToThread will affect object's children as well as Qtimer)
The Qtimer should be constructed in network thread, you can construct a new Qtimer in one of the network thread slots and connecting it to the Qthread::start signal. So by calling start method of Qthrad your slot will be executed on new thread and Qtimer will be constructed on that thread respectively.
Something like this should actually create the socket and the timer in your dedicated thread, given your main-thread is the server and clients should be handled in threads. Otherwise just use QTcpSocket::connectToHost() or QTcpServer:::bind()in your initialize function.
Mainthread:
auto t = new QThread();
t->start();
auto o = new MyThreadObject();
o.moveToThread(t);
o.setDescriptor(socketDesc);
QMetaObject::invokeMethod(o, "initialize", Qt::QueuedConnection);
MyThreadObject:
class MyThreadObject : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
MyThreadObject(){...};
void setDescriptor(qintptr socketdescriptor)
{
m_desc = socketdescriptor;
}
public slots:
void initialize()
{
m_tcpSocket = new QTcpSocket();
m_tcpSocket->setSocketDescriptor(m_desc);
//socket configuration
m_timer = new QTimer();
//timer configuration
m_timer->start();
}
private:
QTcpSocket* m_tcpSocket;
QTimer* m_timer;
qintptr m_desc;
}
I have the message "QWaitCondition: Destroyed while threads are still waiting" following the launch of N threads in a loop, and waiting for each in another loop.
Here is the code :
int nb_threads = QThread::idealThreadCount();
QFuture<void> futures[nb_threads];
bool shared_boolean;
// launch threads
for(int i = 0;i<nb_threads;++i){
futures[i] = QtConcurrent::run(this,gpMainLoopMT,&shared_boolean,&next_pop_size,next_population);
}
// wait for threads to finish
for(int i = 0;i<nb_threads;++i){
futures[i].waitForFinished();
}
I just can't figure out why this is happening, while I am waiting for each thread.
Actually I had the same warning when using Qt in a DLL. Windows kills all threads at application exit, before the DLL's global objects are destroyed. A global object destructor is where I was deleting the QApplication instance. This leads to an inconsistency because the QWaitConditions still think a thread is waiting, when in fact the native thread isn't running anymore, killed by Windows with no chance of proper cleanup. That's what leads to this warning.
It's unfixable, even in Qt. Windows doesn't give us any chance to perform any cleanup, the threads just disappear.
You're not waiting for the threads, you're waiting for the tasks.
The threads keep running until QApplication deletes the global QThreadPool instance. So the question is - are you leaking QApplication or destroying it properly?
I make some https requests directly from my qml views, for instance for image sources. As I have a self signed certificate server side, I need to tell qt to ignore some ssl errors (I control both the server and the client applications, so this shouldn't really be a problem).
I've made a QQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory to create NAMs, where I connect to the sslErrors signal.
UltraQmlAccessManagerFactory.h:
#ifndef FACKFACKTORy_H
#define FACKFACKTORy_H
#include <QQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory>
#include <QObject>
#include <QNetworkReply>
#include <QList>
#include <QSslError>
#include <QNetworkAccessManager>
#include <QDebug>
#include <QSslCertificate>
class UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory : public QObject,
public QQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory {
Q_OBJECT
private:
QNetworkAccessManager* nam;
QList<QSslError> expectedSslErrors;
public:
explicit UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory();
~UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory();
virtual QNetworkAccessManager* create(QObject* parent);
public slots:
void onIgnoreSslErrors(QNetworkReply* reply, QList<QSslError> errors);
};
#endif
UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory.cpp:
#include "UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory.h"
UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory::UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory() {
}
UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory::~UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory() {
delete nam;
}
QNetworkAccessManager* UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory::create(QObject* parent) {
QNetworkAccessManager* nam = new QNetworkAccessManager(parent);
QObject::connect(nam, SIGNAL(sslErrors(QNetworkReply*, QList<QSslError>)),
this, SLOT(onIgnoreSslErrors(QNetworkReply*,QList<QSslError>))
);
return nam;
}
void UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory::onIgnoreSslErrors(QNetworkReply *reply, QList<QSslError> errors) {
for (int i = 0; i < errors.size(); i++) {
qDebug() << "e: " << errors.at(i) << endl;
}
reply->ignoreSslErrors(errors);
}
There is also some glue in main.cpp that sets this factory to be used, I doubt that part is a source of errors as the qDebug prints are visible in the output.
As can be seen in the .cpp file in the function/slot onIgnoreSslErrors, I try to ignore every error (as a test) that I receive, but in the output I do not get the expected results.
Output
e: "The certificate is self-signed, and untrusted"
qrc:/qml/file/ImageView.qml:16:5: QML Image: SSL handshake failed
I have successfully made QNetworkRequests from C++ directly with a QSslConfiguration, specifying TLSV1_0 and a certificate. As I have a suspicion that the handshake fails because one side expects SSL and the other TLS I have also tried to set the QSslConfiguration on the QNetworkRequest object throgh reply->request(); This, however, changes nothing.
(This is a very old one but as I stumbled over this recently and haven't found the answer, I think it's still worth answering)
You don't show the place where you actually setup the factory object but it is extremely likely that it does not belong to the same (actually, any) thread used when its create() method is called. Here's an excerpt from the Qt documentation on the class:
the developer should be careful if the signals of the object to be returned from create() are connected to the slots of an object that may be created in a different thread
It further mentions authenticationRequired() signal but sslErrors() acts in the same way: both signals, among a few others, need either a direct or a blocking queued connection so that by the time of returning to the place of emitting the signal the network reply object has already been configured by the slot.
What happens in your case is (very likely) the following (TL;DR: your slot is called asynchronously by a queued connection because it lives in a different thread, while sslErrors() requires a synchronous change to the running network reply object; despite the order of log lines, the request fails first and ignoreSslErrors() is called later):
The factory object is created, and the QML engine configured, in the main thread.
QML engine spawns a few threads to perform backend stuff, notably network requests for URLs (I'm making the assumption here that your ImageView.qml has an Image component). To perform the network request, these threads call UltraQmlNetworkAccessManagerFactory::create().
create() produces a NAM object and sets up a connection on it. The parent here is either the QQmlEngine object or (specifically for image requests) the backend thread object, as you can see e.g. here. Therefore, this NAM object belongs to the backend thread.
connect() uses Qt::AutoConnection type by default, which, since the threads of the factory and of the NAM object are different, corresponds to Qt::QueuedConnection. As a sidenote, the threads are checked at the time of signal invocation.
Eventually a QNetworkAccessManager::sslErrors() signal is emitted. Since this is a queued connection, the only thing that immediately happens is placing an invocation of onIgnoreSslErrors() on the event queue for the main thread.
If you're very lucky, you may have a context switch to the main thread right after that - but there's literally nothing to ensure that so it's much more likely that control returns to the site where QNetworkAccessManager::sslErrors() was emitted. And since ignoreSslErrors() wasn't called, the request fails the handshake. The backend thread posts relevant data from the (failed) QNetworkReply object back to the main thread - see the postReply call in the middle of the method (or it may do it a bit later - that doesn't matter anymore).
Once the context switches to the main thread ignoreSslErrors() is executed - alas, it's already too late, as the network reply has very likely finished with failure already; but that first log line comes out now.
The main thread goes on through the event loop and finds the QQuickPixmapReply::Event object with the failure data. After some unroll of the calls and signals the failed image ends up in QQuickImageBase::requestFinished() that prints the second log line for you .
As for the fix, it's tempting to just specify Qt::BlockingQueuedConnection as the fifth parameter to connect(). Unfortunately, this will deadlock if a request is ever made from QQmlEngine that runs in the main thread - and uses a NAM instance created by this factory to, e.g., request QML components over the network. Best I could come out with so far is an equivalent of
connect(nam, SIGNAL(sslErrors(QNetworkReply*, QList<QSslError>)),
this, SLOT(onIgnoreSslErrors(QNetworkReply*,QList<QSslError>)),
currentThread() == this->thread() ? Qt::DirectConnection
: Qt::BlockingQueuedConnection
);
I have created my own HTTP class that utilizes QNAM and provides means for sending HTTP requests. It uses QEventLoop for synchronization and QTimer for timeouts.
I'm facing few problems with my solution. On certain Symbian platforms my QTimer signals timeout too fast (e.g. like after 1 sec when timeout is 30 secs). This happends usually if my HTTP Post playload is large or if I'm downloading a file via GET (request takes some time to complete). I want to note that same code works fine on certain devices (S60 3rd ed.) but on the other hand some devices (5th edition) get this error almost all the time.
Here is a code snippet:
MyHttp::MyHttp(QObject *parent) : QObject(parent)
{
m_Timer.setSingleShot(true);
connect(&m_Manager, SIGNAL(finished(QNetworkReply*)), SLOT(OnFinished(QNetworkReply*)));
connect(&m_Timer, SIGNAL(timeout()), SLOT(OnTimeout()));
}
void MyHttp::Post(const QString &data)
{
m_RetCode = 0;
QNetworkRequest request(url);
m_Reply = m_Manager.post(request, data.toAscii()); // QPointer<QNetworkReply> m_Reply
m_Timer.start(30*1000);
m_EventLoop.exec(); // Synchronization point
}
void MyHttp::OnFinished(QNetworkReply * reply)
{
// Handle response / Timeout / Errors
reply->deleteLater(); // Use deleteLater() as adviced in the documentation
StopWaiting();
}
void MyHttp::StopWaiting()
{
m_Timer.stop();
m_EventLoop.exit();
}
void MyHttp::OnTimeout()
{
m_RetCode = TIMEOUT; // #define TIMEOUT 50000
if(m_Reply.isNull() == false)
{
// Abort reply
m_Reply->abort();
}
}
Personally I think that one of the following might cause the problem:
re-entering local event loop messes up the signals
I'm utilizing same QNAM multiple times (several request during same session). This is required because if I destroy the QNAM my session goes down on the server side.
Is anyone able to see some errors that might cause this behavior?
Platform: Symbian S60 3rd/5th edition
Tools: Nokia Qt SDK
I've exactly that sort of problems as well. Using local to the method QEventLoop produces strange results, like blocking some events to be processed (and then loop never exits), or like explained, provoking QTimer to fire too fast before timeout (and then loop exits too early).
Using an instance field for the loop initialized once in the constructor of parent object of the loop, seems to solve the problem.
I'm on Qt 4.6.3 and Symbian S60/5th Edition.