Simplest way for PyQT Threading

Question

I have a GUI in PyQt with a function addImage(image_path). Easy to imagine, it is called when a new image should be added into a QListWidget. For the detection of new images in a folder, I use a threading.Thread with watchdog to detect file changes in the folder, and this thread then calls addImage directly.

This yields the warning that QPixmap shouldn't be called outside the gui thread, for reasons of thread safety.

What is the best and most simple way to make this threadsafe? QThread? Signal / Slot? QMetaObject.invokeMethod? I only need to pass a string from the thread to addImage.

Answer 1

You should use the built in QThread provided by Qt. You can place your file monitoring code inside a worker class that inherits from QObject so that it can use the Qt Signal/Slot system to pass messages between threads.

class FileMonitor(QObject):

    image_signal = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str)

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot()
    def monitor_images(self):
        # I'm guessing this is an infinite while loop that monitors files
        while True:
            if file_has_changed:
                self.image_signal.emit('/path/to/image/file.jpg')


class MyWidget(QtGui.QWidget):

    def __init__(self, ...)
        ...
        self.file_monitor = FileMonitor()
        self.thread = QtCore.QThread(self)
        self.file_monitor.image_signal.connect(self.image_callback)
        self.file_monitor.moveToThread(self.thread)
        self.thread.started.connect(self.file_monitor.monitor_images)
        self.thread.start()

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
    def image_callback(self, filepath):
        pixmap = QtGui.QPixmap(filepath)
        ...

Answer 2

I believe the best approach is using the signal/slot mechanism. Here is an example. (Note: see the EDIT below that points out a possible weakness in my approach).

from PyQt4 import QtGui
from PyQt4 import QtCore

# Create the class 'Communicate'. The instance
# from this class shall be used later on for the
# signal/slot mechanism.

class Communicate(QtCore.QObject):
    myGUI_signal = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str)

''' End class '''


# Define the function 'myThread'. This function is the so-called
# 'target function' when you create and start your new Thread.
# In other words, this is the function that will run in your new thread.
# 'myThread' expects one argument: the callback function name. That should
# be a function inside your GUI.

def myThread(callbackFunc):
    # Setup the signal-slot mechanism.
    mySrc = Communicate()
    mySrc.myGUI_signal.connect(callbackFunc) 

    # Endless loop. You typically want the thread
    # to run forever.
    while(True):
        # Do something useful here.
        msgForGui = 'This is a message to send to the GUI'
        mySrc.myGUI_signal.emit(msgForGui)
        # So now the 'callbackFunc' is called, and is fed with 'msgForGui'
        # as parameter. That is what you want. You just sent a message to
        # your GUI application! - Note: I suppose here that 'callbackFunc'
        # is one of the functions in your GUI.
        # This procedure is thread safe.

    ''' End while '''

''' End myThread '''

In your GUI application code, you should create the new Thread, give it the right callback function, and make it run.

from PyQt4 import QtGui
from PyQt4 import QtCore
import sys
import os

# This is the main window from my GUI

class CustomMainWindow(QtGui.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self):
        super(CustomMainWindow, self).__init__()
        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 2500, 1500)
        self.setWindowTitle("my first window")
        # ...
        self.startTheThread()

    ''''''

    def theCallbackFunc(self, msg):
        print('the thread has sent this message to the GUI:')
        print(msg)
        print('---------')

    ''''''


    def startTheThread(self):
        # Create the new thread. The target function is 'myThread'. The
        # function we created in the beginning.
        t = threading.Thread(name = 'myThread', target = myThread, args = (self.theCallbackFunc))
        t.start()

    ''''''

''' End CustomMainWindow '''


# This is the startup code.

if __name__== '__main__':
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    QtGui.QApplication.setStyle(QtGui.QStyleFactory.create('Plastique'))
    myGUI = CustomMainWindow()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

''' End Main '''

EDIT

Mr. three_pineapples and Mr. Brendan Abel pointed out a weakness in my approach. Indeed, the approach works fine for this particular case, because you generate / emit the signal directly. When you deal with built-in Qt signals on buttons and widgets, you should take another approach (as specified in the answer of Mr. Brendan Abel).

Mr. three_pineapples adviced me to start a new topic in StackOverflow to make a comparison between the several approaches of thread-safe communication with a GUI. I will dig into the matter, and do that tomorrow :-)