[Qt-interest] global thread not running until main app starts

[Paul England]

I have a QThread (well, a couple) which have global scope which contain 
a QTcpSocket which gets data from a server. 


dialog* main_window;
double data;

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    QApplication app( argc, argv );
    my_thread threads[3];
   
    for ( int i = 0; i < 3; i++ ) {
       threads[i].setup( host, port );
       threads[i].start();
    }

    sleep( 2 );
    dialog my_dialog;
    main_window = &my_dialog;
    main_window->show();
    return app.exec()

}

Here's the implementation of the thread...truncated.

my_thread::run()
{
    socket = new QTcpSocket;
    connect( socket, SIGNAL( readyRead() ), this, SLOT( 
socket_ready_read() ) );
    exec();
}

void my_thread::socket_ready_read()
{
    printf( "Got something\n" );
   
    while ( socket->canReadline() ) {
       // parse line
       // store value in 'data', which has global scope.
    }
}

Generally these things connect and immediately have data.  I want the 
GUI to be built around some values of that data.  As you can see, I 
print out a line whenever I get something.  "dialog" is a QDialog.  In 
it's constructor, I check if I've got any data from a thread. If it's 
not there, it dies (and it always dies).  If I use some hard coded value 
instead, it starts, and right when the constructor returns, the data 
gushes in (as it's been cached for 2 seconds).

Shouldn't this thread execute separtely from the GUI?  Am I missing 
something?

Thanks
Paul