[Interest] Q_PROPERTY notification across processes?

[Tony Rietwyk]

Hi Charley, 

 

You didn't say which type of systems this will be running on? 

 

What about QtDBus using a direct connection between the applications,
instead of the system-wide bus?  

 

Even if that doesn't work for you, it has solved many of the same problems,
and needed over 20,000 lines of code! 

 

Regards, 

 

Tony

 

 

From: interest-bounces+tony=rightsoft.com.au at qt-project.org
[mailto:interest-bounces+tony=rightsoft.com.au at qt-project.org] On Behalf Of
Charley Bay
Sent: Friday, 17 May 2013 11:27 AM
To: Qt Interest
Subject: [Interest] Q_PROPERTY notification across processes?

 

I have a C++ QObject-derived class that exposes properties for use in QML,
works fine (Qt5).

 

WHAT I WANT:

 

I would like to instantiate an "instance" of this class in each of two
processes, where changes in one "notifies" the other (in the other process).
This is logically something like "local-instance-reflection" to a remote
instance in a remote process.

 

(I could create a second class-type if needed, but current implementation
suggests I could instantiate the same class type on each side.)

 

My current thoughts are to use a "socket" between the two processes, where
the objects "agree" on a unique identifier that represents that
"reflected-instance" in each process.  Then, the implementation would
trigger "onChange" operations in the remote-instance from property-changes
in the local-instance.  There would be many of these "reflecting-pairs".

 

This "implementation-plumbing" would probably be through some C++
implemented dispatcher, where one would be instantiated in each process, and
be responsible for the serialization for state-changes/notifications between
the processes (read/write), and routing the notification to the object in
the local process.

 

A concern I have is that there will be *many* of these pairs (thousands,
possibly tens-of-thousands), and I don't know if the approach would
scale-well for lots of notifications.

 

Does this design seem reasonable?

 

Do you have thoughts on an alternative?

 

It seems like the "Q_PROPERTY" notification through QML would be an
interesting mechanism to enable this "generic-cross-process"
event-based-synchronization.

 

I can't use shared memory, as these processes will typically be on different
machines.

 

--charley

 

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