Signal Slot Qt Thread

Widgets emit signals when events occur. For example, a button will emit a clicked signal when it is clicked. Red rock casino breakfast buffet menu specials. A developer can choose to connect to a signal by creating a function (a slot) and calling the connect function to relate the signal to the slot. Qt's signals and slots mechanism does not require classes to have knowledge of each other. In this case if you emit a signal from one thread, and catching it in another one (e.g. In main GUI thread) - Qt will put a slot's call to the message queue and will make all calls sequentially. Buy poker chips in chennai. Read this for further info - http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/threads-qobject.html#signals-and-slots-across-threads.

1. Signal Slot Qt Thread Holders
2. Qt Signal Slot Cross Thread
3. Qt Thread Signal Slot Example
4. Qt Signal Slot Between Threads

how in BOOST send a signal in a thread and have the corresponding slot executed in another thread?

In Qt for instance if you emit a signal in a thread other that the GUI thread, the signal is enqueued and executed later in the GUI thread, is there a way to do that with boost?

Signal Slot Qt Thread Holders

thanks

For an event loop use boost::asio::io_service. You can post tasks inside this object and have another thread execute them, in a thread safe way:

Messaging and Signaling in C++, But as this blog post is more on signaling then system events. Qt signal/slot implementation is thread safe, so that you can use it to send messages important, as anything UI related should run in the main thread of Qt, anything that I use this in a different program to have one widget for editing flag like Almost all classes provided by Boost.Signals2 are thread safe and can be used in multithreaded applications. For example, objects of type boost::signals2::signal and boost::signals2::connection can be accessed from different threads. On the other hand, boost::signals2::shared_connection_block is not thread safe.

Not directly, because boost does not provide an event loop.

To have a signal handled in another thread, that another thread needs to be checking the queue of handlers it should run and execute them (which usually means some kind of event-loop). Boost does not provide one, so you'll need to get it from elsewhere or write it.

If you have an event-loop, that does not provide signals, (or implement some simple solution with queues) you should be able to (ab)use boost.signals2 (not boost.signals, because that version is not thread-safe) by overriding the operator+= to wrap each handler in something, that will queue it for execution in the other thread. You might even be able to implement it for signals with return values (which is not supported by Qt, but is supported by boost), but you'll have to be careful to avoid dead-lock.

[PDF] Boost.Signals2, Signals2 library is an implementation of a managed signals and slots system. This documentation describes a thread-safe variant of the original Boost. so we put 'Hello' into a group that must be executed before the group possible to set up tracking in a post-constructor which is called after the object has been created​ To have a signal handled in another thread, that another thread needs to be checking the queue of handlers it should run and execute them (which usually means some kind of event-loop). Boost does not provide one, so you'll need to get it from elsewhere or write it.

Signals & Slots, Signals and slots are made possible by Qt's meta-object system. to one signal, the slots will be executed one after the other, in the order they have valueChanged() , and it has a slot which other objects can send signals to. The context object provides information about in which thread the receiver should be executed. Special behavior for C++: If a thread is sent a signal using pthread_kill() and that thread does not handle the signal, then destructors for local objects may not be executed. How can i avoid paying taxes on casino winnings. Usage notes. The SIGTHSTOP and SIGTHCONT signals can be issued by this function. pthread_kill() is the only function that can issue SIGTHSTOP or SIGTHCONT. Returned value

Chila's answer is correct, but it's missing one important thing:A boost::thread object will only call the function its passed once. Since the boost::io_service has no work to do until the signal is emitted, the thread will finish immediately. To counter this there is a boost::asio::io_service::work class.Before you call the run() method of the io_service you should create a work object and pass it the io_service:

Note: At the time of writing (boost 1.67) this method is already deprecated and you are supposed to use io_context::executor_work_guard (basically same functionality as io_service::work). I was not able to compile when using the new method though, and the work solution is still working in boost 1.67.

Slots, It also implements a few conditional (event) related classes. Qt - SigSlot - Boost Libraries Qt was the original signal/slots implementation, but it Sigslot and Boost on the other hand are pure ISO C++, but both have some disadvantages. None of these are thread-safe and it can be somewhat inconvenient manually Qt documentation states that signals and slots can be direct, queued and auto. It also stated that if object that owns slot 'lives' in a thread different from object that owns signal, emitting such signal will be like posting message - signal emit will return instantly and slot method will be called in target thread's event loop.

For some reason, the assignment operator of boost::asio::executor_work_guard is deleted, but you still can construct it.

Here's my version of the code that posts some movable Event object and processes it on the thread running io_context::run():

It requires C++14 and was tested with VS2017 and GCC 6.4 with thread & memory sanitizers.

Observer pattern with Stl, boost and qt, A comparison between the Qt signal and slot mechanism and some Each slot is a potential callback ○ Adds more run-time introspection, The Synapse library ○ Another signals/slot like library ○ Submitted to Very similar to boost::​signals2 ○ Have the ability to transfer control between threads 29; 30. So, when the thread is created from the create_thread method it will call the io_service::run method and it passes the io_service object as an argument. Typically one io_service object can be used with multiple socket objects.

QThreads: Are You Using Them Wrong?, Show related SlideShares at end The Basics of QThread QThread manages one thread of execution ○ The Signal Slot Connections and Threads ○ Qt::​DirectConnection have same thread affinity: Direct ○ If objects have different thread It implies you want to send cross-thread signals to yourself. Direct Connection The slot is invoked immediately, when the signal is emitted. The slot is executed in the emitter's thread, which is not necessarily the receiver's thread. Queued Connection The slot is invoked when control returns to the event loop of the receiver's thread. The slot is executed in the receiver's thread.

What do I do if a slot is not invoked?, A practical checklist to debug your signal/slot connections that an event loop is running in the thread the receiver has affinity with;; that all the arguments Using this signal is very easy – it just acts like a flag, but you can wait for it as well as read it. The following unit test (also in GitHub) shows how the signal makes it easy for threads to set gates on each other. Note that the final signal in this example could have been done with thread.join(), but wasn't for the purposes of the test.

[Boost-users] Signals2 benchmark, I want to test it against boost::signals2 to get an idea of how well it performs. Suppose one thread disconnects a slot while another fires a signal Each Signal-type has its own corresponding vector of slots defined within the Emitter. the copy being made instead of every slot being called and executed. POSIX requires that signal is thread-safe, and specifies a list of async-signal-safe library functions that may be called from any signal handler. Signal handlers are expected to have C linkage and, in general, only use the features from the common subset of C and C++. It is implementation-defined if a function with C++ linkage can be used as a

Comments

• THX for this very helpfull sample ! Since boost::signal is deprecated I have to use boost::signals2::signal<>.

Qt Signal Slot Cross Thread

This blog is part of a series of blogs explaining the internals of signals and slots.

In this article, we will explore the mechanisms powering the Qt queued connections.

Summary from Part 1

In the first part, we saw that signalsare just simple functions, whose body is generated by moc. They are just calling QMetaObject::activate, with an array of pointers to arguments on the stack.Here is the code of a signal, as generated by moc: (from part 1)

QMetaObject::activatewill then look in internal data structures to find out what are the slots connected to that signal.As seen in part 1, for each slot, the following code will be executed:

So in this blog post we will see what exactly happens in queued_activateand other parts that were skipped for the BlockingQueuedConnection

Qt Event Loop

A QueuedConnection will post an event to the event loop to eventually be handled.

When posting an event (in QCoreApplication::postEvent),the event will be pushed in a per-thread queue(QThreadData::postEventList).The event queued is protected by a mutex, so there is no race conditions when threadspush events to another thread's event queue.

Once the event has been added to the queue, and if the receiver is living in another thread,we notify the event dispatcher of that thread by calling QAbstractEventDispatcher::wakeUp.This will wake up the dispatcher if it was sleeping while waiting for more events.If the receiver is in the same thread, the event will be processed later, as the event loop iterates.

Qt Thread Signal Slot Example

The event will be deleted right after being processed in the thread that processes it.

An event posted using a QueuedConnection is a QMetaCallEvent. When processed, that event will call the slot the same way we call them for direct connections.All the information (slot to call, parameter values, ..) are stored inside the event.

Copying the parameters

The argv coming from the signal is an array of pointers to the arguments. The problem is that these pointers point to the stack of the signal where the arguments are. Once the signal returns, they will not be valid anymore. So we'll have to copy the parameter values of the function on the heap. In order to do that, we just ask QMetaType. We have seen in the QMetaType article that QMetaType::create has the ability to copy any type knowing it's QMetaType ID and a pointer to the type.

To know the QMetaType ID of a particular parameter, we will look in the QMetaObject, which contains the name of all the types. We will then be able to look up the particular type in the QMetaType database.

queued_activate

We can now put it all together and read through the code ofqueued_activate, which is called by QMetaObject::activate to prepare a Qt::QueuedConnection slot call.The code showed here has been slightly simplified and commented:

• THX for this very helpfull sample ! Since boost::signal is deprecated I have to use boost::signals2::signal<>.

Qt Signal Slot Cross Thread

This blog is part of a series of blogs explaining the internals of signals and slots.

In this article, we will explore the mechanisms powering the Qt queued connections.

Summary from Part 1

In the first part, we saw that signalsare just simple functions, whose body is generated by moc. They are just calling QMetaObject::activate, with an array of pointers to arguments on the stack.Here is the code of a signal, as generated by moc: (from part 1)

QMetaObject::activatewill then look in internal data structures to find out what are the slots connected to that signal.As seen in part 1, for each slot, the following code will be executed:

So in this blog post we will see what exactly happens in queued_activateand other parts that were skipped for the BlockingQueuedConnection

Qt Event Loop

A QueuedConnection will post an event to the event loop to eventually be handled.

When posting an event (in QCoreApplication::postEvent),the event will be pushed in a per-thread queue(QThreadData::postEventList).The event queued is protected by a mutex, so there is no race conditions when threadspush events to another thread's event queue.

Once the event has been added to the queue, and if the receiver is living in another thread,we notify the event dispatcher of that thread by calling QAbstractEventDispatcher::wakeUp.This will wake up the dispatcher if it was sleeping while waiting for more events.If the receiver is in the same thread, the event will be processed later, as the event loop iterates.

Qt Thread Signal Slot Example

The event will be deleted right after being processed in the thread that processes it.

An event posted using a QueuedConnection is a QMetaCallEvent. When processed, that event will call the slot the same way we call them for direct connections.All the information (slot to call, parameter values, ..) are stored inside the event.

Copying the parameters

The argv coming from the signal is an array of pointers to the arguments. The problem is that these pointers point to the stack of the signal where the arguments are. Once the signal returns, they will not be valid anymore. So we'll have to copy the parameter values of the function on the heap. In order to do that, we just ask QMetaType. We have seen in the QMetaType article that QMetaType::create has the ability to copy any type knowing it's QMetaType ID and a pointer to the type.

To know the QMetaType ID of a particular parameter, we will look in the QMetaObject, which contains the name of all the types. We will then be able to look up the particular type in the QMetaType database.

queued_activate

We can now put it all together and read through the code ofqueued_activate, which is called by QMetaObject::activate to prepare a Qt::QueuedConnection slot call.The code showed here has been slightly simplified and commented:

Upon reception of this event, QObject::event will set the sender and call QMetaCallEvent::placeMetaCall. That later function will dispatch just the same way asQMetaObject::activate would do it for direct connections, as seen in Part 1

BlockingQueuedConnection

BlockingQueuedConnection is a mix between DirectConnection and QueuedConnection. Like with aDirectConnection, the arguments can stay on the stack since the stack is on the thread thatis blocked. No need to copy the arguments.Like with a QueuedConnection, an event is posted to the other thread's event loop. The event also containsa pointer to a QSemaphore. The thread that delivers the event will release thesemaphore right after the slot has been called. Meanwhile, the thread that called the signal will acquirethe semaphore in order to wait until the event is processed.

It is the destructor of QMetaCallEvent which will release the semaphore. This is good becausethe event will be deleted right after it is delivered (i.e. the slot has been called) but also whenthe event is not delivered (e.g. because the receiving object was deleted).

A BlockingQueuedConnection can be useful to do thread communication when you want to invoke afunction in another thread and wait for the answer before it is finished. However, it must be donewith care.

The dangers of BlockingQueuedConnection

You must be careful in order to avoid deadlocks.

Obviously, if you connect two objects using BlockingQueuedConnection living on the same thread,you will deadlock immediately. You are sending an event to the sender's own thread and then are locking thethread waiting for the event to be processed. Since the thread is blocked, the event will never beprocessed and the thread will be blocked forever. Qt detects this at run time and prints a warning,but does not attempt to fix the problem for you.It has been suggested that Qt could then just do a normal DirectConnection if both objects are inthe same thread. But we choose not to because BlockingQueuedConnection is something that can only beused if you know what you are doing: You must know from which thread to what other thread theevent will be sent.

The real danger is that you must keep your design such that if in your application, you do aBlockingQueuedConnection from thread A to thread B, thread B must never wait for thread A, or you willhave a deadlock again.

Qt Signal Slot Between Threads

When emitting the signal or calling QMetaObject::invokeMethod(), you must not have any mutex lockedthat thread B might also try locking.

A problem will typically appear when you need to terminate a thread using a BlockingQueuedConnection, for example in thispseudo code:

You cannot just call wait here because the child thread might have already emitted, or is about to emitthe signal that will wait for the parent thread, which won't go back to its event loop. All the thread cleanup information transfer must only happen withevents posted between threads, without using wait(). A better way to do it would be:

The downside is that MyOperation::cleanup() is now called asynchronously, which may complicate the design.

Conclusion

This article should conclude the series. I hope these articles have demystified signals and slots,and that knowing a bit how this works under the hood will help you make better use of them in yourapplications.