Suppose I have some code like this:
QListWidgetItem *pItem = new QListWidgetItem(...);
insertItem(i, pItem);
.....
then:
removeRows(..)
If I don't delete the pointer pItem, will it cause memory leak?
From Qt documentation:
If you need to insert a new item into the list at a particular position, then it should be constructed without a parent widget. The insertItem() function should then be used to place it within the list. The list widget will take ownership of the item.
So there is no memory leak.
Related
I have a QStackedWidget which has a bunch of static "pages" but in a couple of cases one page needs to be recreated when it's switched to. Currently I have something like this:
void InsetNavigator::Navigate(InsetPage *page)
{
auto current_page = qobject_cast<InsetPage*>(stacked_widget_->currentWidget());
auto current_idx = stacked_widget_->currentIndex();
current_page->MadeHidden();
stacked_widget_->removeWidget(current_page);
current_page->setParent(nullptr);
delete current_page;
stacked_widget_->insertWidget(current_idx -1, page);
stacked_widget_->setCurrentWidget(page);
page->MadeVisible();
}
My question is, do I need to bother with reparenting the current page to a nullptr before deleting it, or can I just delete the current_page and the QStackedWidget will handle the fact that it's been deleted for me? I don't know if leaving the stacked widget as the parent but deleting the pointer will cause issues.
It depends on how the container-widget is implemented.
But in most-cases if not all, the container-widget (QStackedWidget in OP's case) updates own internal-state automatically once any child-widget is deleted.
I am new with Qt and i am very confused about how widgets are deleted. I was reading a video and i wanted to show up a QProgressbar while the video frames are being read and then remove this QProgressbar when the video is loaded.
I have done it with 2 different ways:
Using Pointers
QWidget* wd = new QWidget();
QProgressBar* pB = new QProgressBar(wd);
QLabel* label = new QLabel(wd);
//setting geometry and updating the label and progressbar
wd->deleteLater();
wd->hide();
this code is written inside a class and i was assuming when the destructor of this class is called, the widget will be deleted with all of it's children but that didn't happen and everytime i run this function again a new widget is created without hiding or deleting the previous one (NOTE: i have tried to delete the label and progressbar from the widget assuming that they will disappear from inside the widget but this didn't happen "delete(pB);")
Using Objects
QWidget wd;
QProgressBar pB(&wd);
QLabel label(wd);
//setting geometry and updating the label and progressbar
wd.deleteLater();
wd.hide();
When i have run the same code but using objects instead of pointers , it has run exactly as i have wanted and everytime i run the function, the old widget is destroyed and a new one is created.
NOTE: -Also when i close the main window, in case of pointers, the widget wd still exists and the program doesn't terminate until i close them manually
- In case of Objects, when i close the main window everything is closed and the program is terminated correctly.
I need someone to explain me why is this happening and how if i am having a vector of pointers to widgets to delete all pointers inside that vector without any memory leakage
In typical C++ the rule would be "write one delete for every new". An even more advanced rule would be "probably don't write new or delete and bury that in the RIAA pattern instead". Qt changes the rule in this regard because it introduces its own memory management paradigm. It's based on parent/child relationships. QWidgets that are newed can be given a parentWidget(). When the parentWidget() is destroyed, all of its children will be destroyed. Hence, in Qt it is common practice to allocate objects on the stack with new, give them a parent, and never delete the memory yourself. The rules get more complicated with QLayout and such becomes sometimes Qt objects take ownership of widgets and sometimes they don't.
In your case, you probably don't need the deleteLater call. That posts a message to Qt's internal event loop. The message says, "Delete me when you get a chance!" If you want the class to manage wd just give it a parent of this. Then the whole parent/child tree will get deleted when your class is deleted.
It's all really simple. QObject-derived classes are just like any other C++ class, with one exception: if a QObject has children, it will delete the children in its destructor. Keep in mind that QWidget is-a QObject. If you have an instance allocated usingnew`, you must delete it, or ensure that something (a smart pointer!) does.
Of course, attempting to delete something you didn't dynamically allocate is an error, thus:
If you don't dynamically allocate a QObject, don't deleteLater or delete it.
If you don't dynamically allocate a QObject's children, make sure they are gone before the object gets destructed.
Also, don't hide widgets you're about to destruct. It's pointless.
To manage widget lifetime yourself, you should use smart pointers:
class MyClass {
QScopedPointer<QWidget> m_widget;
public:
MyClass() :
widget{new QWidget};
{
auto wd = m_widget->data();
auto pb = new QProgressBar{wd};
auto label = new QLabel{wd};
}
};
When you destroy MyClass, the scoped pointer's destructor will delete the widget instance, and its QObject::~QObject destructor will delete its children.
Of course, none of this is necessary: you should simply create the objects as direct members of the class:
class MyClass {
// The order of declaration has meaning! Parents must precede children.
QWidget m_widget;
QProgressBar m_bar{&m_widget};
QLabel m_label{&m_widget};
public:
MyClass() {}
};
Normally you'd be using a layout for the child widgets:
class MyClass {
QWidget m_widget;
QVBoxLayout m_layout{&m_widget};
QProgressBar m_bar;
QLabel m_label;
public:
MyClass() {
m_layout.addWidget(&m_bar);
m_layout.addWidget(&m_label);
}
};
When you add widgets to the layout, it reparents them to the widget the layout has been set on.
The compiler-generated destructor looks as below. You can't write such code, since the compiler-generated code will double-destroy the already destroyed objects, but let's pretend you could.
MyClass::~MyClass() {
m_label.~QLabel();
m_bar.~QProgressBar();
m_layout.~QVBoxLayout();
// At this point m_widget has no children and its `~QObject()` destructor
// won't perform any child deletions.
m_widget.~QWidget();
}
I have a QComboBox_1 with items added (both icon and text). Then i added item to the QListWidget_1 as below from a QPushButton_1 clicked(). The QListWidget forcing to add a QListWidgetItem as a pointer value.
void MainWindow::on_QPushButton_1_clicked(){
int intSelected = ui->QComboBox_1->currentIndex();
QListWidgetItem *Itm = new QListWidgetItem(ui->QComboBox_1->itemIcon(intSelected), ui->QComboBox_1->itemText(intSelected));
ui->QListWidget_1->addItem(Itm);}
And it is working fine. But i didn't delete the pointer variable "*Itm" in any of the code (MainWindow unload or close). This will create memory leak?
I am a beginner to Qt and C++
Thanks in advance.
No it will not. Technically it's not entirely obvious from the manual, though one definitely can suppose that.
Additionally, in the source of QListWidget.cpp you can see that items are stored inside internal QListModel class which handles deletion of them automatically in its destructor and in other cases when they are removed.
I have a piece of code which does this: a method named prepareUI makes the UI ready to be able to load search results that are fed into it. A method named onClear that is called when the results that are already showing needs to be cleared. And a method named populateSearchResults that takes the search data and loads the UI with it. The container that holds the data is a publicly available pointer, since it is needed to clear the results from onClear:
void MyClass::prepareSearchUI() {
//there may be many search results, hence need a scroll view to hold them
fResultsViewBox = new QScrollArea(this);
fResultsViewBox->setGeometry(28,169,224,232);
fSearchResultsLayout = new QGridLayout();
}
void MyClass::onClear() {
//I have tried this, this causes the problem, even though it clears the data correctly
delete fSearchResultContainer;
//tried this, does nothing
QLayoutItem *child;
while ((child = fSearchResultsLayout->takeAt(0)) != 0) {
...
delete child;
}
}
void MyClass::populateWithSearchesults(std::vector<std::string> &aSearchItems) {
fSearchResultContainer = new QWidget();
fSearchResultContainer->setLayout(fSearchResultsLayout);
for (int rowNum = 0; rowNum < aSearchItems.size(); rowNum++) {
QHBoxLayout *row = new QHBoxLayout();
//populate the row with some widgets, all allocated through 'new', without specifying any parent, like
QPushButton *loc = new QPushButton("Foo");
row->addWidget(loc);
fSearchResultsLayout->addLayout(row, rowNum, 0,1,2);
}
fResultsViewBox->setWidget(fSearchResultContainer);
}
Problem is, when I call onClear which internally calls delete, it does remove all the results that were showing. But after that, if I call populateWithSearchesults again, my app crashes, and the stack trace shows this method as where it crashed.
How do I fix this problem?
It seems that you have some misconceptions about ownership. A QLayout takes ownership of any item that is added to it: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qlayout.html#addItem
That means the QLayout is responsible for deleting these items. If you delete them then the QLayout will also try to delete them and then you get the crash you're seeing now.
QLayout doesn't have good functionality for deleting contents and re-adding them (for example removeWidget probably doesn't work as you would hope.) But there's a reason for this.
QLayout is not intended to be used as a list view.
What you do want is a, wait for it, QListView. Which will even handle the scroll functionality for you, and make adding and removing elements a possibility.
Actually you can solve this issue easily, even if you are using QGridLayout or any other Layouts :
subLayout->removeWidget(m_visibleCheckBox);//removes and then it causes some zigzag drawing at (0,0)
m_visibleCheckBox->setVisible(false);//asks to redraw the component internally
setLayout(subLayout);//for safety as we may use that layout again and again
If you just use the first line it will cause this :
What will happen if we will run delete widget for widget that is in layout? If this case was written in documentation, please give me the link (I didn't find).
Code example:
QLabel *l1 = new QLabel("1st");
QLabel *l2 = new QLabel("2nd");
QVBoxLayout *layout = new QVBoxLayout;
layout->addWidget(l1);
layout->addWidget(l2);
QWidget *mainWidget = new QWidget;
mainWidget->setLayout(layout);
mainWidget->show();
delete l1;
l2->deleteLater();
Can things that will happen be different for l1 and l2?
I believe what you are doing is almost same, though neither would properly remove from layout the way you should be doing it. They are still being left as bad references in the layout (if I remember correctly)
The first one simply deletes the item now. The second will delete it once the control returns back to the event loop. But really, the way people usually remove items from a layout is to take them from the layout (giving it a chance to adjust itself), then delete the item and its widget (if you want).
QLayoutItem *child;
while ((child = layout->takeAt(0)) != 0) {
delete child->widget();
delete child;
}
Again, the deleting of the widget (child->widget()) is only needed if you want to destroy the widget that was added, in addition to the layout item that was holding it.
QLayout's listen for events of type ChildRemoved and remove the items
accordingly. Simply deleting the widget is safe.
by #FrankOsterfeld here.
dont use delete l1 on Qobjects that has active slots connected to them, you will run into a crash.
Use:
l1->hide();
l1->deleteLater();
It works fine for me
Generally, I don't like to delete Qt widgets, rather remove them from the appropriate layout. (Qt will delete its own widgets if you set the Delete on close window attribute. ) The difference between calling delete and delete later is that delete is the normal C++ delete operation that will call the destructor and free the memory associated with the object.
The deleteLater() method, as discussed in the Qt documentation deletes the object when the event loop is entered.