[Interest] building a light weight tree model

André Somers andre at familiesomers.nl
Wed May 3 07:48:24 CEST 2017


Hi,


Op 03/05/2017 om 00:18 schreef Frank Rueter | OHUfx:
> Thanks for the tip.
> I don't know C++ so that's not an option, but I can Cythonise and
> compile later.
>
> Actually, I started with a command line app that just printed out a
> report. In my analysis I need to visit every file and directory and
> collect data such as size, file extensions, matches to a user filter etc.
Do you really? Are you sure you need your tree fully expanded? Note that
QFileSystemModel (QFSM) does its population in a lazy way: it does not
iterate over parts of the file system that have not been requested yet
from the model (and it does not monitor for changes in these parts
either). Are you sure you need each and every file and dir's data right
away? Can your user even view that much information?

> Hence it felt natural to collect QStandardItems as I went, rather than
> us QFileSystemModel and then cycle through all items after the fact.
Perhaps you should explain your requirements a bit better. What are you
going to do with the data? What do you need on top of what QFSM already
supplies? You mentioned being able to navigate into zip files? Anything
else?

> I will have a look at doing that though, since you  seem to be in
> agreement that it will be faster.
>
> >>QStandardItemModel is not the API you are looking for
> Can you clarify please? I thought it was one of the simplest models
> and hence I gravitated towards that.
> Should I use QAbstractItemModel instead (unless I end up using
> QFileSystemModel)?
QStandardItemModel is all but the simplest model. It is a very heavy and
complicated one. Its item-based API provides many fields by default, and
also sports virtual methods. You won't need many of these, yet you will
pay the price for them for every cell in your entire model. It is far
more efficient to create a compact data structure that contains just the
data you really need in your case, and expose that via a
QAbstractItemModel (QAIM) derived model directly.

Also on a conceptual level, I think the class is wrong for most usecases
- including yours. It models a collection of independent individual
cells, like a spread sheet where each cell can recursively contain a
child spread sheet again (as is the structure of QAIM). But your data
does not look like that. You are dealing with a forest structure: a
collection of trees of items, containing directories (branches) and
files (leafs). Sure, these items have attributes that you may want to
present in aditional columns in your model, but in essense, the data is
just about files and directories (which also can be thought of as files,
only files containing a list of other files). So, you want your API to
match _that_ concept. You want your API to deal with files, not with a
row of items that really may contain anything.

InsHMO, the naming of this class was a mistake. It should never have
been called "Standard", as that suggests it is the default choice, while
in fact it should almost never be that. And the introdcution of
QListWidget, QTableWidget and QTreeWidget was an even bigger mistake.

André

>
> Cheers,
> frank
>
> On 3/05/17 7:52 AM, André Somers wrote:
>>
>> Hi
>>
>>
>> Op 02/05/2017 om 09:15 schreef Frank Rueter | OHUfx:
>>> I need a few custom views for my data, including representing
>>> collections of files with a certain extension as virtual zip files,
>>> i.e. items that don't actually exist on disk.
>> So, use a proxy model or a model that wraps the original one.
>>> I assumed using QFileSystemModel would not be the most efficient way
>>> to use i this case (based on various comments I read in the past).
>> Eh... If you want to know if your code is efficient, you should not
>> start from assumptions. You should start with measurements and some
>> concrete goals.
>>
>> Other than that, I fully agree with Chris: if you want this to work
>> fast, use C++ and avoid QStandardItemModel, especially for "huge"
>> models. QStandardItemModel is not the API you are looking for (ever,
>> IMHO, with a possible exception for small toy projects).
>>
>> André
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2/05/17 6:25 PM, Ch'Gans wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2 May 2017 at 17:55, Frank Rueter | OHUfx <frank at ohufx.com
>>>> <mailto:frank at ohufx.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>     Here is a snippet of test code to mimic a light weight tree model.
>>>>     All it is trying to do is mimic the parenting according to the
>>>>     directory structure on disk using QStandardItems in a
>>>>     QStandardModel.
>>>>     It works, but it took me way longer to figure out than I
>>>>     expected, and I have a feeling some of you may have good advise
>>>>     on how to make it more efficient.
>>>>     https://pastebin.com/vRkzDPtt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What's your definition of "more efficient", what are the problems,
>>>> what make you think it's not efficient?
>>>>
>>>> If you want efficiency, then don't use python and don't use
>>>> QStandardModel, if you want expediency then use QFileSystemModel.
>>>>
>>>> My 2 cents.
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     I am not using QFileSystemModel as I wanted to keep things as
>>>>     efficient as possible and also need to add some custom items to
>>>>     the model.
>>>>     Also, for the Python programmers: in my actual code I am using
>>>>     scandir.walk() instead of os.walk() for speed.
>>>>
>>>>     Any input would be greatly appreciated as I will need to run
>>>>     this over disks that have massive amounts of files.
>>>>
>>>>     Cheers,
>>>>     frank
>>>>
>>>>
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