Passing the parent pointer in Qt | ERROR: no member named in QObject - c++

Question

I am new to qt and I am trying to create a program where the MainWindow calls a QDialog to enter some data.
The problem is that the parent() at my QDialog does not have any access to the public methods of the MainWindow in our case the
void save_city(const City *city); //public method of MainWindow
The code is actually big so here is some of the code.Thanks.
mainwindow.h
#include <QGraphicsScene>
#include <QGraphicsView>
#include <QMainWindow>
#include <QTextStream>
#include <QVector>
#include <QDebug>
#include <QFile>
#include "dialog_add_city.h"
#include "street.h"
#include "city.h"
#include "map.h"
namespace Ui {
class MainWindow;
}
class MainWindow : public QMainWindow
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
//main Window constructor
explicit MainWindow(QWidget *parent = 0);
//main Window deconstructor
~MainWindow();
/*utility function to save the city
*the function is public so that also QDialogs
*data saves can */
//////////////
//here is the public function
void save_city(const City *city);
private slots:
private:
Map mainMap;
Ui::MainWindow *ui;
QGraphicsView view;
QGraphicsScene scene;
};
dialog_add_city.h
#ifndef DIALOG_ADD_CITY_H
#define DIALOG_ADD_CITY_H
#include <QDialog>
#include "mainwindow.h"
#include "City.h"
namespace Ui {
class Dialog_Add_City;
}
class Dialog_Add_City : public QDialog
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit Dialog_Add_City(QWidget *parent = 0);
~Dialog_Add_City();
private slots:
//Add New City Button clicked-Adds an new city to our city_locations.txt
void on_PushButton_Add_New_City_clicked();
private:
Ui::Dialog_Add_City *ui;
};
#endif // DIALOG_ADD_CITY_H
dialog_add_city.cpp
#include "dialog_add_city.h"
#include "ui_dialog_add_city.h"
Dialog_Add_City::Dialog_Add_City(QWidget *parent) :
QDialog(parent),
ui(new Ui::Dialog_Add_City)
{
ui->setupUi(this);
}
Dialog_Add_City::~Dialog_Add_City()
{
delete ui;
}
void Dialog_Add_City::on_PushButton_Add_New_City_clicked()
{
City *city=new City(ui->lineEdit_cityName->text(),
ui->lineEdit_X_Ko->text().toDouble(),
ui->lineEdit_Y_Ko->text().toDouble());
qDebug() << ui->lineEdit_cityName->text()
<< ui->lineEdit_X_Ko->text()
<< ui->lineEdit_Y_Ko->text();
/////////////////////////////
//HERE IS THE PROBLEM
parent()->save_city(city);
}
Any other suggestions are welcomed!

Answer 1

The Problem is that parent() will return a pointer the parent object as QObject.
QObject Documentation
As dreschrjm pointed out you could try to cast the object via
MyWidget *myWidget = qobject_cast<MyWidget *>(obj);
from The Meta-Object System

Answer 2

Suggestion: Use Qt's signal/slot mechanism to avoid a backward reference to the parent.
Declare save_city as signal in Dialog_Add_City.
Declare save_city in MainWindow as slot
Connect both where the dialog is created:
e.g.
void MainWindow::show_add_city_dialog()
{
Dialog_Add_city dialog;
connect(&dialog, &Dialog_Add_city::save_city, this, &MainWindow::save_city);
dialog.exec();
}
Replace parent()->save_city(city); in Dialog_Add_City with emit save_city(city);
Ensure that the new city object doesn't leak, I think a better design would be to create the City object elsewhere not in the dialog.
so
emit save_city(ui->lineEdit_cityName->text(),
ui->lineEdit_X_Ko->text().toDouble(),
ui->lineEdit_Y_Ko->text().toDouble());
and the slot
void MainWindow::save_city(const QString &cityName, double x, double y)
{
City *city=new City(cityName, x, y);
// do some interresting things with city.
}