[Development] Undeprecating QString::null

[Kevin Kofler]

Uwe Rathmann wrote:
> So my first question would be, what is wrong about using QString:null and
> why using QString() is better. My second question then would be if this
> is also for Qt4 ( Qwt 6.1.2 supports all versions >= Qt 4.4 ) and older
> versions of C++ and compilers.

A long long time ago, QString::null used to be a static instance of 
QString(). This was more efficient than QString() in a context like this one 
where a const QString & is needed, but less efficient in many contexts where 
people (ab)used it, e.g.:
QString foo = QString::null;
which should really be just:
QString foo;

Thus, now, QString::null is just a static instance of an empty structure, 
and converting that structure to QString is the same as QString(), so there 
is no longer any performance benefit from using QString::null. This was 
already the case in Qt 4. Even Qt 3.3.8b already had that change.

So just use QString(), or define your own static instance of it if you 
really want to microoptimize it that much.

        Kevin Kofler