QObject class

The QObject class is the base class of all Qt objects.

QObject is the heart of the Qt Object Model. The central feature in this model is a very powerful mechanism for seamless object communication called signals and slots. You can connect a signal to a slot with connect() and destroy the connection with disconnect(). To avoid never ending notification loops you can temporarily block signals with blockSignals(). The protected functions connectNotify() and disconnectNotify() make it possible to track connections.

QObjects organize themselves in object trees. When you create a QObject with another object as parent, the object will automatically add itself to the parent's children() list. The parent takes ownership of the object; i.e., it will automatically delete its children in its destructor. You can look for an object by name and optionally type using findChild() or findChildren().

Every object has an objectName() and its class name can be found via the corresponding metaObject() (see QMetaObject::className()). You can determine whether the object's class inherits another class in the QObject inheritance hierarchy by using the inherits() function.

When an object is deleted, it emits a destroyed() signal. You can catch this signal to avoid dangling references to QObjects.

QObjects can receive events through event() and filter the events of other objects. See installEventFilter() and eventFilter() for details. A convenience handler, childEvent(), can be reimplemented to catch child events.

Last but not least, QObject provides the basic timer support in Qt; see QTimer for high-level support for timers.

Notice that the Q_OBJECT macro is mandatory for any object that implements signals, slots or properties. You also need to run the Meta Object Compiler on the source file. We strongly recommend the use of this macro in all subclasses of QObject regardless of whether or not they actually use signals, slots and properties, since failure to do so may lead certain functions to exhibit strange behavior.

All Qt widgets inherit QObject. The convenience function isWidgetType() returns whether an object is actually a widget. It is much faster than qobject_cast<QWidget *>(obj) or obj->inherits("QWidget").

Some QObject functions, e.g. children(), return a QObjectList. QObjectList is a typedef for QList<QObject *>.