Prevent Firing Signals in Qt

Question

We have a QCheckBox object, when user checks it or removes check we want to call a function so we connect our function to stateChanged ( int state ) signal. On the other hand, according to some condition we also change the state of QCheckBox object inside code, and this causes the unwanted signal.

Is there any way to prevent firing signal under some conditions?

Answer 1

You can use the clicked signal because it is only emitted when the user actually clicked the check box, not when you manually check it using setChecked.

If you just don't want the signal to be emitted at one specific time, you can use QObject::blockSignals like this:

bool oldState = checkBox->blockSignals(true);
checkBox->setChecked(true);
checkBox->blockSignals(oldState);

The downside of this approach is that all signals will be blocked. But I guess that doesn't really matter in case of a QCheckBox.

Answer 2

You can always block signal emission on QObjects using QObject::blockSignals(). Note that to be correct about things, you should remember the old state (returned from the function call), and restore it when you are done.

At my job, we prefer RAII for this sort of thing. A simple class to do so might look like this:

class SignalBlocker
{
public:
    SignalBlocker( QObject *obj ) : m_obj( obj ), m_old( obj->blockSignals( true ) )
    {
    }

    ~SignalBlocker()
    {
        m_obj->blockSignals( m_old );
    }

private:
    QObject *m_obj;
    bool m_old;
};

Edit: Starting with Qt 5.3, see QSignalBlocker (h/t to HappyCactus in comments)