How to signal from a running QThread back to the PyQt Gui that started it?

Question

I am trying to understand how to use signaling from a Qthread back to the Gui interface that started.

Setup: I have a process (a simulation) that needs to run almost indefinitely (or at least for very long stretches of time)., While it runs, it carries out various computations, amd some of the results must be sent back to the GUI, which will display them appropriately in real time. I am using PyQt for the GUI. I originally tried using python's threading module, then switched to QThreads after reading several posts both here on SO and elsewhere.

According to this post on the Qt Blog You're doing it wrong, the preferred way to use QThread is by creating a QObject and then moving it to a Qthread. So I followed the advice inBackground thread with QThread in PyQt"> this SO question and tried a simple test app (code below): it opens up a simple GUI, let you start the background process, and it issupposed to update the step value in a spinbox.

But it does not work. The GUI is never updated. What am I doing wrong?

import time, sys
from PyQt4.QtCore  import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import * 

class SimulRunner(QObject):
    'Object managing the simulation'

    stepIncreased = pyqtSignal(int, name = 'stepIncreased')
    def __init__(self):
        super(SimulRunner, self).__init__()
        self._step = 0
        self._isRunning = True
        self._maxSteps = 20

    def longRunning(self):
        while self._step  < self._maxSteps  and self._isRunning == True:
            self._step += 1
            self.stepIncreased.emit(self._step)
            time.sleep(0.1)

    def stop(self):
        self._isRunning = False

class SimulationUi(QDialog):
    'PyQt interface'

    def __init__(self):
        super(SimulationUi, self).__init__()

        self.goButton = QPushButton('Go')
        self.stopButton = QPushButton('Stop')
        self.currentStep = QSpinBox()

        self.layout = QHBoxLayout()
        self.layout.addWidget(self.goButton)
        self.layout.addWidget(self.stopButton)
        self.layout.addWidget(self.currentStep)
        self.setLayout(self.layout)

        self.simulRunner = SimulRunner()
        self.simulThread = QThread()
        self.simulRunner.moveToThread(self.simulThread)
        self.simulRunner.stepIncreased.connect(self.currentStep.setValue)


        self.connect(self.stopButton, SIGNAL('clicked()'), self.simulRunner.stop)
        self.connect(self.goButton, SIGNAL('clicked()'), self.simulThread.start)
        self.connect(self.simulRunner,SIGNAL('stepIncreased'), self.currentStep.setValue)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    simul = SimulationUi()
    simul.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

Answer 1

The problem here is simple: your SimulRunner never gets sent a signal that causes it to start its work. One way of doing that would be to connect it to the started signal of the Thread.

Also, in python you should use the new-style way of connecting signals:

...
self.simulRunner = SimulRunner()
self.simulThread = QThread()
self.simulRunner.moveToThread(self.simulThread)
self.simulRunner.stepIncreased.connect(self.currentStep.setValue)
self.stopButton.clicked.connect(self.simulRunner.stop)
self.goButton.clicked.connect(self.simulThread.start)
# start the execution loop with the thread:
self.simulThread.started.connect(self.simulRunner.longRunning)
...