QList<QList<QString>> passed into QML

Question

I'm trying to pass a 2d QList as a Q_PROPERTY into QML, however, inside QML and i am unable to actually access any of the information.

some code:

c++: the q_property get populated by a q_invokable function in the constructor:

void Class::createNewGameArray(){
QList<QList<QString>> testArray;

for( int i = 0; i < _intervals.size(); ++i) {
    QList<QString> innerArray;
    testArray.append(innerArray);
        testArray[i].append(_intervals[i]);
        testArray[i].append("Audio");
}
for( int i = 0; i < _intervals.size(); ++i) {
    QList<QString> innerArray;
    testArray.append(innerArray);
        testArray[i+12].append(_intervals[i]);
        testArray[i+12].append("Text");
}
 std::random_shuffle(testArray.begin(),testArray.end());
Class::setGameArray(testArray);
emit gameArrayChanged(_newGameArray);

which returns this:

(("M7", "Text"), ("M3", "Text"), ("m3", "Text"), ("M6", "Audio"), ("TT", "Audio"), ("P4", "Text"), ("m7", "Audio"), ("m2", "Text"), ("m6", "Audio"), ("m6", "Text"), ("M7", "Audio"), ("P5", "Text"), ("P4", "Audio"), ("m2", "Audio"), ("M2", "Audio"), ("M3", "Audio"), ("P5", "Audio"), ("m3", "Audio"), ("M6", "Text"), ("TT", "Text"), ("m7", "Text"), ("Oct", "Audio"), ("Oct", "Text"), ("M2", "Text"))

exactly what i want.

i set the rootContext like so in main.cpp:

Class object;

QQmlApplicationEngine engine;
QQmlContext* context = engine.rootContext();

context->setContextProperty("object", &object);
engine.load(QUrl(QStringLiteral("qrc:/main.qml")));

however, inside qml i only get

qml: QVariant(QList<QList<QString> >)

and am unable to actually do anything with it.

My goal, ideally, would be to be able to access the 2d qlist from qml in this manner:

object.gameArray[0][1] // return "Text"

I'm able to do this with regular QLists (without the 2d). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

QML does not inherently understand QLists, so in general it is not possible to pass in a QList of any type T and have QML able to access the items inside the list.

However, the QML engine does have built in support for a few specific types of QList:

• QList<QObject *>
• QList<QVariant>
• QStringList - (not QList<QString>!!!)

Therefore if you can construct your list of lists using any combination of the 3 types above, then you can have a working solution. In your use case I would suggest the following construction:

QList<QVariant(QStringList)>

A final note before we try it... Just because this will work, it does not necessarily mean that it is a good idea. The QList contents are copied to Javascript arrays at runtime, and therefore any minor updates to any of the lists from the C++ will cause the entire list to be reconstructed as a new Javascript array, which could be expensive.

Now, let's try it...

myclass.h

#ifndef MYCLASS_H
#define MYCLASS_H
#include <QStringList>
#include <QVariant>

class MyClass : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT
    Q_PROPERTY(QList<QVariant> variantList READ variantList NOTIFY variantListChanged)

public:
    explicit MyClass(QObject *parent = nullptr) : QObject(parent),
        m_variantList({
                      QStringList({ "apple", "banana", "coconut" }),
                      QStringList({ "alice", "bob", "charlie" }),
                      QStringList({ "alpha", "beta", "gamma" })
        }) { }

    QList<QVariant> variantList() const { return m_variantList; }

signals:
    void variantListChanged();

public slots:

private:
    QList<QVariant> m_variantList;
};

#endif // MYCLASS_H

main.qml

import QtQuick 2.7
import QtQuick.Controls 2.0

ApplicationWindow {
    visible: true
    width: 640
    height: 480

    Column {
        id: column

        // will add the strings here from the handler below
    }

    Component.onCompleted: {
        console.log("variantList length %1".arg(myClass.variantList.length))

        for (var i = 0; i < myClass.variantList.length; i++) {

            console.log("stringList %1 length %2".arg(i).arg(myClass.variantList[i].length))

            for (var j = 0; j < myClass.variantList[i].length; j++) {
                // print strings to the console
                console.log("variantList i(%1), j(%2) = %3".arg(i).arg(j).arg(myClass.variantList[i][j]))

                // add the strings to a visual list so we can see them in the user interface
                Qt.createQmlObject('import QtQuick 2.7; Text { text: "i(%1), j(%2) = %3" }'.arg(i).arg(j).arg(myClass.variantList[i][j]), column)
            }
        }
    }
}

main.cpp

#include <QGuiApplication>
#include <QQmlApplicationEngine>
#include <QQmlContext>
#include "myclass.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QCoreApplication::setAttribute(Qt::AA_EnableHighDpiScaling);
    QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);

    QQmlApplicationEngine engine;

    MyClass myClass;
    engine.rootContext()->setContextProperty("myClass", &myClass);

    engine.load(QUrl(QLatin1String("qrc:/main.qml")));
    if (engine.rootObjects().isEmpty())
        return -1;

    return app.exec();
}

Runtime output

qml: variantList length 3
qml: stringList 0 length 3
qml: variantList i(0), j(0) = apple
qml: variantList i(0), j(1) = banana
qml: variantList i(0), j(2) = coconut
qml: stringList 1 length 3
qml: variantList i(1), j(0) = alice
qml: variantList i(1), j(1) = bob
qml: variantList i(1), j(2) = charlie
qml: stringList 2 length 3
qml: variantList i(2), j(0) = alpha
qml: variantList i(2), j(1) = beta
qml: variantList i(2), j(2) = gamma

... and it works :)