QT: trouble with qobject_cast - qt

I have derived QGraphicsItem and QGraphicsScene classes. I want the items to be able to call scene() and get a derviedGraphicsItem * instead of a QGraphicsItem *, so I reimplemented QGraphicsScene::itemAt to return a derived pointer.
DerivedItem* DerivedScene::itemAt( const QPointF &position, const QTransform &dt ) const
{
return qobject_cast< DerivedItem * >(
QGraphicsScene::itemAt(position, dt) );
}
I get the following error (Qt 4.6, GCC 4.4.3 on Ubuntut 10.4)
scene.cpp: In member function ‘DerivedItem* DerivedScene::itemAt(qreal, qreal, const QTransform&) const’:
scene.cpp:28: error: no matching function for call to ‘qobject_cast(QGraphicsItem*)’
I then noticed QGraphicsItem doesn't inherit QObject, so I made my derived QGraphicsItem class have multiple inheritance from QObject and QGraphicsItem, and after adding the Q_OBJECT macro and rebuilding the project I get the same error.
Am I going about this the wrong way? I know it's supposed to be bad design to try to cast a parent class as a child, but in this case it seems like what I want, since my derived item class has new functionality and its objects need a way to call that new functionality on items around themselves, and asking the items scene object with itemAt() seems like the best way - but I need itemAt() to return a pointer of the right type. I can get around this by having the derived items cast the QGraphicsItem * returned by QGraphicsScene::itemAt() using dynamic_cast, but I don't really understand why that works and not qobject_cast, or the benefits or disadvantages to using dynamic_cast vs. qobject_cast.
EDIT:
forgot to mention that I also reimplemented QGraphicsItem::scene() in my derived class to return a DerivedScene *, as
DerivedScene* DerivedItem::scene() const
{
return qobject_cast< DerivedScene * >( QGraphicsItem::scene() );
}
but this doesn't appear to be causing a compilation error...

There is no point in inheriting from QObject just for casting. The advantage of qobject_cast
over dynamic cast is summed up pretty much in the qobject_cast documentation:
The qobject_cast() function behaves similarly to the standard C++ dynamic_cast(), with the advantages that it doesn't require RTTI support and it works across dynamic library boundaries.
It's nice to have and useful if you have QObjects, but not worth to inherit from QObject if it is all you want from QObject.
Also, for QGraphicsIems there is qgraphicsitem_cast, which should do exactly what you want :)

You have to pass a QObject pointer to qobject_cast() and QGraphicsScene::itemAt returns a QGraphicsItem pointer. Since, as you mentioned, QGraphicsItem does not derive from QObject, the complier gave you that error.

Related

Create custom C++ Object in QML and store it in a C++ Model

I have written a customer Class (inheriting from QObject) in C++ and registered it's type successfully with QML. Currently I'm creating objects of this class statically in C++ and storing a pointer to them in a Model which implements QAbstractListModel. In QML in I can access the objects perfectly as items of the Model.
The customObject is a non-visual object.
I'm visualising in another part of the GUI application (QML) the objects in a ListView with a delegate.
However now I would like to create objects from my custom Class dynamically in QML and store them also in the Model. This is where I'm struggling. I hoped I could create a customObject like this:
import com.myProject.myCustomStuff 1.0
...
Button{
id: createObjBtn
text: "create new CustomObj"
onClicked:{
var obj = MyCustomObj;
myObjectManager.addObj(obj); // object holding the implemented QAbstactListModel
console.log(typeof(obj)); // returns [Object object]
console.log(Qt.isQtObject(obj)) // returns false
}
}
I would appreciate your thoughts. Maybe someone knows a way to do this correctly?
Thanks!
Update 1
As requested by Simon-Warta, here is the Constructor implementation of MyCustomObj.
MyCustomObj.cpp
MyCustomObj::MyCustomObj(QObject *parent) : QObject(parent)
{
QQmlEngine::setObjectOwnership(this, QQmlEngine::CppOwnership);
}
You are confusing the functionality intent of the classes. The QAbstractListModel is intended as a wrapper around a container, yes, you could put the container inside the QAbstractListModel derived class, but you don't really have to, the container can be just about any C++ class, not necessarily even QObject derived, it can be just a QVector<Something> that you can reach from the model via a pointer. Which is good for cases where you have many objects, and not all need to have models at all the time, since those models are pretty heavy.
You don't really need to concern yourself with the ownership, leave that at the C++ side, the same goes for the actual object creation, have a slot called that adds the new object to the container while also using the model's beginInsertRows() and endInsertRows() so that any views will be notified to update efficiently, the new object should also be created in that slot, you can pass any data needed for it from QML, just make sure all data is registered with the Qt meta system so it can work with QVariant for QML-C++ interop.
So it should be something like:
myObjectManager.create(/* any needed data goes here */)
And create() passes eventual data to the C++ side, where you create the object, call beginInsertRows(), add the object to the model's underlying storage, then call endInsertRows() and you are done.
I'd prefer to keep the ownership in the C++ side (and I don't mean explicitly), where I have control over it. Qt kind of sucks in a big way when dealing with object ownership shared between C++ and QML. Ideally, there should be a single shared pointer class that will work across both C++ and QML, so the object is deleted once all reference to it are gone. But that is just not the "Qt way" - the Qt shared pointers do not work with QML, nor do the standard C++ shared pointers, there is actually an entirely different shared reference class for QML, which is not even part of the public API IIRC, very ugly and shortsighted design that only widens the gap between C++ and QML and the associated inconvenience factor.
I don't know if this is the shortest way but this should do for you. I am starting with the basics for those other up-voters.
MyCustomObj.h
class MyCustomObj : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
// ...
Q_INVOKABLE void funfunction();
MyCustomObj.cpp
void MyCustomObj::funfunction()
{
qDebug("Fun with QML");
}
main.cpp
qmlRegisterType<MyCustomObj>("com.myProject.myCustomStuff", 1, 0, "MyCustomObj");
app.qml
import com.myProject.myCustomStuff 1.0
ApplicationWindow {
id: mainWindow
Component {
id: myComponent
MyCustomObj {
}
}
Component.onCompleted: {
var obj = myComponent.createObject(mainWindow)
if (!obj) console.error("Error creating object")
console.log(typeof(obj))
console.log(Qt.isQtObject(obj))
obj.funfunction()
}
}
createObject optionally takes properties to be passed to the component.
Storing
Since you are responsible for deleting the objects now, I'd recommend to use shared pointers, such that the objects get destroyed when the List is destroyed.
Your implementation of QAbstactListModel, let's call it MyModel has an adder function like that:
#include <memory> // for std::shared_ptr
class MyModel : public QAbstractListModel
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
// ..
Q_INVOKABLE addObj(MyCustomObj* obj)
{
objectlist_.append(std::shared_ptr<MyCustomObj>(obj));
}
private:
QList<std::shared_ptr<MyCustomObj>> objectlist_
}

Do Qt properties assume objects are pointers and not members?

Let's say I have a C++ object with a member object that I expose to QML:
class X : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
};
class Y : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
Q_PROPERTY(X* x READ getX CONSTANT)
public:
X* getX(void) { return &x; }
X x;
};
Most of the time this works, but sometimes it will cause crashes. The call stack is quite lengthy but goes like this:
QScopedPointer<QObjectData, QScopedPointerDeleter<QObjectData> >::data
qGetPtrHelper<QScopedPointer<QObjectData>>
QObject::d_func
QObjectPrivate::get
QQmlNotifierEndpoint::disconnect
QQmlNotifierEndpoint::~QQmlNotifierEndpoint
QQmlJavaScriptExpressionGuard::~QQmlJavaScriptExpressionGuard
QRecyclePool<QQmlJavaScriptExpressionGuard, 1024>::Delete
QQmlJavaScriptExpressionGuard::Delete
QQmlJavaScriptExpression::GuardCapture::captureProperty
QQmlEnginePrivate::captureProperty
QV4::QObjectWrapper::getProperty
etc.
If instead I set X to be a pointer:
class Y : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
Q_PROPERTY(X* x READ getX CONSTANT)
public:
Y()
{ x = new X; }
X* getX(void) { return x; }
X* x;
};
The crashes go away.
Is this a known restriction of Q_PROPERTY, that if you return a pointer to a QObject, that object is assumed to be a pointer (not a member) and things like deleteLater() might be called?
This crash most likely happens because QML takes ownership of the object c your function returns, and want to delete it at some point late.
In your first example, since x is not allocated from the free store, trying to delete it will crash.
In the second example, the QML engine still tries to delete it, but it does so without problem.
The question to ask is why does the QML engine takes ownership of the object ?
The documentation states in Data Type Conversion Between QML and C++ | Data Ownership :
When data is transferred from C++ to QML, the ownership of the data always remains with C++. The exception to this rule is when a QObject is returned from an explicit C++ method call: in this case, the QML engine assumes ownership of the object, unless the ownership of the object has explicitly been set to remain with C++ by invoking QQmlEngine::setObjectOwnership() with QQmlEngine::CppOwnership specified.
Additionally, the QML engine respects the normal QObject parent ownership semantics of Qt C++ objects, and will not ever take ownership of a QObject instance which already has a parent.
So, in order to remedy to your problem, you could either affect a QObject parent to your x object, or explicitely declaring it having QmlEngine::CppOwnership.

Q_OBJECT "copying" - copy all properties instead

As we all know, Q_OBJECTs are instances and are not copyable.
Is there any kind of syntactic sugar to copy all static and dynamic properties of an arbitrary QObject derived class?
It seems such a nobrainer, but I can't find any reference to such - obviously implementing one myself should be quite trivial - loop over metaObject(), loop over dynamicPropertyNames(), set accordingly.
You could implement a copy helper class as follows.
/** Enable QObjects to be explicitly copyable by copying property values. */
template<class T>
class QObjectCopyHelper<T>
{
protected:
explicit QObjectCopyHelper(T *client) : m_client(client) {}
public:
T *clone(QObject *parent = 0) {
T *copy = new T(parent);
// loop over and copy properties from m_client to copy
// (both from T::staticMetaObject and dynamic ones)
return copy;
}
private:
T *m_client; // <-- I think we need this, but I might be wrong
};
Then you can use this in any QObject subclass with very low work needed to be done:
class MyClass : public QObject, public QObjectCopyHelper<MyClass>
{
Q_OBJECT
...
};
However, this still needs clone() to be called (the ugly "Java-style"). So we can additionally define a copy constructor just calling clone() and you also might think of a assign() method called within the assignment operator.
Please note that this really copies the properties only! There are a lot of other things being tracked in QObject, like the current connections. They explicitly forbid copying QObjects because it would be very difficult to define rules on how this should be done, and these rules would be the correct ones for some use cases only, while in others you want other rules...
A solution is discussed here, where they take the loop-over-the-properties approach. There seems to be no "syntactic sugar" here.

Why the "q_ptr" pointer is assigned to "this" pointer of QObject?

Like the title,why the "q_ptr" pointer is assigned to "this" pointer of QObject? in source code.
QObject::QObject(QObjectPrivate &dd, QObject *parent)
: d_ptr(&dd)
{
>>Q_D(QObject);
>>d_ptr->q_ptr = this;/*question*/
.......
Then,when use Q_Q() macro in source code like blow:
Q_Q(QWidget)
It will return the q pointer handled by the function q_fun():
QWidget*q_func() {return static_cast<QWidget*>(q_ptr);}
As all we know,static_castis not safe when cast from parent to child.
I am very frustrated about /*question*/ ,can any guy tell me the secret?Thanks!
d_ptr->q_ptr = this;/*question*/
This is where the private implementation object (PIMPL idiom) is told about the object it is working for/with (the non-private QObject). Here's a good link for info about Qt and d pointers (d_ptr).
Q_Q macro returns the pointer to the QObject, so you can emit signals from it (among other things). As for the static_cast bit, that is safe because the macro is defined differently for each class created by the Q_DECLARE_PRIVATE and Q_DECLARE_PUBLIC macros: the result being, static_cast is always casting to the correct type. Again, I recommend reading the link.

Convert a QStandardItemModel to a QVariant

I'm trying to send a QStandardItemModel-derived object to PythonQt, but I'm a little confused on how it needs to be sent. When I was using boost::python I had several controls like boost::noncopyable to ensure I wasn't recreating this object, but sharing it with python. I also had constructs to provide a boost shared pointer to python from inside python.
class Scene : public boost::enable_shared_from_this<Scene>, public QStandardItemModel
In PythonQt, however, I'm not sure what's available. The function call takes a QVariantList for all the function parameters.
QVariant PythonQt::call(PyObject* object, const QString &callable, const QVariantList &args = QVariantList))
What I'm confused about now is how to get my object to python via a QVariant. Since its derived from QStandardItemModel, I figured it would already be register
void MyObject::someFunction(QString fileName)
{
QVariant myObjectV = qVariantFromValue(this);
// send to python
...
}
But this gives me the following error:
'qt_metatype_id' : is not a member of 'QMetaTypeId<MyObject>'
I've tried registering it after I declare my class, but this throws a different error.
class MyObject : public QStandardItemModel
{
Q_OBJECT
...
};
Q_DECLARE_METATYPE(MyObject)
QStandardItemModel::QStandardItemModel(const QStandardItemModel&) is private within this context.
I actually get the error twice--once in header where I add the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE and in another header, which has a class which always derives from QStandardItemModel but is otherwise unrelated.
Is Q_DECLARE_METATYPE even the correct way to go about converting this object to a QVariant?
BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(scene)
{
class_("Scene");
}
Yes, by default, QVariant can take one of te following types - http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qvariant.html#Type-enum - and they are not enough for your task. You should declare additional types by yourself via qmetatype system. Thus you shoud call qRegisterMetaType() function.

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