[Development] Lack of base classes/interfaces? Q*, Q*F

Kevin Kofler kevin.kofler at chello.at
Tue Apr 18 00:01:10 CEST 2017


Alejandro Exojo wrote:
> You should really explain which kind of code did you change, because just
> recently I adjusted code from using a key press event to a touch event,
> and the point had to change from QPoint to QPointF, and the changes were
> minimal. This wasn't explained to me, but I just found it natural. Also:
> 
> https://wiki.qt.io/API_Design_Principles#Static_Polymorphism

And for the OP who is coming from Python: C++ templates can actually be used 
to duck-type things *at compile time*, and thus get some compile-time 
polymorphism without an inheritance relationship. So if foo is a template 
<typename T>, then calling at(i) on an object of type T will call 
QVector::at(int) in foo<QVector> and QList::at(int) in foo<QList>, simply 
because of the name. (Trying to instantiate the template with a class that 
does not have an at(int) method will of course fail to compile.)

What will of course *NOT* work in C++ is to duck-type things *at runtime*. 
You cannot pass a QList to foo<QVector>. Runtime polymorphism is (in 
general) only possible through virtual methods and inheritance. (And yes, I 
know about the possibilities to (ab)use QMetaObject for Q_OBJECTs or 
Q_GADGETs to get there. That is out of scope here.)

        Kevin Kofler




More information about the Development mailing list