doc/src/examples/simpletreemodel.qdoc
changeset 7 f7bc934e204c
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/doc/src/examples/simpletreemodel.qdoc	Wed Mar 31 11:06:36 2010 +0300
@@ -0,0 +1,346 @@
+/****************************************************************************
+**
+** Copyright (C) 2010 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
+** All rights reserved.
+** Contact: Nokia Corporation (qt-info@nokia.com)
+**
+** This file is part of the documentation of the Qt Toolkit.
+**
+** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:LGPL$
+** No Commercial Usage
+** This file contains pre-release code and may not be distributed.
+** You may use this file in accordance with the terms and conditions
+** contained in the Technology Preview License Agreement accompanying
+** this package.
+**
+** GNU Lesser General Public License Usage
+** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Lesser
+** General Public License version 2.1 as published by the Free Software
+** Foundation and appearing in the file LICENSE.LGPL included in the
+** packaging of this file.  Please review the following information to
+** ensure the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 requirements
+** will be met: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html.
+**
+** In addition, as a special exception, Nokia gives you certain additional
+** rights.  These rights are described in the Nokia Qt LGPL Exception
+** version 1.1, included in the file LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt in this package.
+**
+** If you have questions regarding the use of this file, please contact
+** Nokia at qt-info@nokia.com.
+**
+**
+**
+**
+**
+**
+**
+**
+** $QT_END_LICENSE$
+**
+****************************************************************************/
+
+/*!
+    \example itemviews/simpletreemodel
+    \title Simple Tree Model Example
+
+    The Simple Tree Model example shows how to create a basic, read-only
+    hierarchical model to use with Qt's standard view classes. For a
+    description of simple non-hierarchical list and table models, see the
+    \l{model-view-programming.html}{Model/View Programming} overview.
+
+    \image simpletreemodel-example.png
+
+    Qt's model/view architecture provides a standard way for views to manipulate
+    information in a data source, using an abstract model of the data to
+    simplify and standardize the way it is accessed. Simple models represent
+    data as a table of items, and allow views to access this data via an
+    \l{model-view-model.html}{index-based} system. More generally, models can
+    be used to represent data in the form of a tree structure by allowing each
+    item to act as a parent to a table of child items.
+
+    Before attempting to implement a tree model, it is worth considering whether
+    the data is supplied by an external source, or whether it is going to be
+    maintained within the model itself. In this example, we will implement an
+    internal structure to hold data rather than discuss how to package data from
+    an external source.
+
+    \section1 Design and Concepts
+
+    The data structure that we use to represent the structure of the data takes
+    the form of a tree built from \c TreeItem objects. Each \c TreeItem
+    represents an item in a tree view, and contains several columns of data.
+
+    \target SimpleTreeModelStructure
+    \table
+    \row \i \inlineimage treemodel-structure.png
+    \i \bold{Simple Tree Model Structure}
+
+    The data is stored internally in the model using \c TreeItem objects that
+    are linked together in a pointer-based tree structure. Generally, each
+    \c TreeItem has a parent item, and can have a number of child items.
+    However, the root item in the tree structure has no parent item and it
+    is never referenced outside the model.
+
+    Each \c TreeItem contains information about its place in the tree
+    structure; it can return its parent item and its row number. Having
+    this information readily available makes implementing the model easier.
+
+    Since each item in a tree view usually contains several columns of data
+    (a title and a summary in this example), it is natural to store this
+    information in each item. For simplicity, we will use a list of QVariant
+    objects to store the data for each column in the item.
+    \endtable
+
+    The use of a pointer-based tree structure means that, when passing a
+    model index to a view, we can record the address of the corresponding
+    item in the index (see QAbstractItemModel::createIndex()) and retrieve
+    it later with QModelIndex::internalPointer(). This makes writing the
+    model easier and ensures that all model indexes that refer to the same
+    item have the same internal data pointer.
+
+    With the appropriate data structure in place, we can create a tree model
+    with a minimal amount of extra code to supply model indexes and data to
+    other components.
+
+    \section1 TreeItem Class Definition
+
+    The \c TreeItem class is defined as follows:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.h 0
+
+    The class is a basic C++ class. It does not inherit from QObject or
+    provide signals and slots. It is used to hold a list of QVariants,
+    containing column data, and information about its position in the tree
+    structure. The functions provide the following features:
+
+    \list
+    \o The \c appendChildItem() is used to add data when the model is first
+       constructed and is not used during normal use.
+    \o The \c child() and \c childCount() functions allow the model to obtain
+       information about any child items.
+    \o Information about the number of columns associated with the item is
+       provided by \c columnCount(), and the data in each column can be
+       obtained with the data() function.
+    \o The \c row() and \c parent() functions are used to obtain the item's
+       row number and parent item.
+    \endlist
+
+    The parent item and column data are stored in the \c parentItem and
+    \c itemData private member variables. The \c childItems variable contains
+    a list of pointers to the item's own child items.
+
+    \section1 TreeItem Class Implementation
+
+    The constructor is only used to record the item's parent and the data
+    associated with each column.
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 0
+
+    A pointer to each of the child items belonging to this item will be
+    stored in the \c childItems private member variable. When the class's
+    destructor is called, it must delete each of these to ensure that
+    their memory is reused:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 1
+
+    Since each of the child items are constructed when the model is initially
+    populated with data, the function to add child items is straightforward:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 2
+
+    Each item is able to return any of its child items when given a suitable
+    row number. For example, in the \l{#SimpleTreeModelStructure}{above diagram},
+    the item marked with the letter "A" corresponds to the child of the root item
+    with \c{row = 0}, the "B" item is a child of the "A" item with \c{row = 1},
+    and the "C" item is a child of the root item with \c{row = 1}.
+
+    The \c child() function returns the child that corresponds to
+    the specified row number in the item's list of child items:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 3
+
+    The number of child items held can be found with \c childCount():
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 4
+
+    The \c TreeModel uses this function to determine the number of rows that
+    exist for a given parent item.
+
+    The \c row() function reports the item's location within its parent's
+    list of items:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 8
+
+    Note that, although the root item (with no parent item) is automatically
+    assigned a row number of 0, this information is never used by the model.
+
+    The number of columns of data in the item is trivially returned by the
+    \c columnCount() function.
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 5
+
+    Column data is returned by the \c data() function, taking advantage of
+    QList's ability to provide sensible default values if the column number
+    is out of range:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 6
+
+    The item's parent is found with \c parent():
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treeitem.cpp 7
+
+    Note that, since the root item in the model will not have a parent, this
+    function will return zero in that case. We need to ensure that the model
+    handles this case correctly when we implement the \c TreeModel::parent()
+    function.
+
+    \section1 TreeModel Class Definition
+
+    The \c TreeModel class is defined as follows:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.h 0
+
+    This class is similar to most other subclasses of QAbstractItemModel that
+    provide read-only models. Only the form of the constructor and the
+    \c setupModelData() function are specific to this model. In addition, we
+    provide a destructor to clean up when the model is destroyed.
+
+    \section1 TreeModel Class Implementation
+
+    For simplicity, the model does not allow its data to be edited. As a
+    result, the constructor takes an argument containing the data that the
+    model will share with views and delegates:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 0
+
+    It is up to the constructor to create a root item for the model. This
+    item only contains vertical header data for convenience. We also use it
+    to reference the internal data structure that contains the model data,
+    and it is used to represent an imaginary parent of top-level items in
+    the model.
+
+    The model's internal data structure is populated with items by the
+    \c setupModelData() function. We will examine this function separately
+    at the end of this document.
+
+    The destructor ensures that the root item and all of its descendants
+    are deleted when the model is destroyed:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 1
+
+    Since we cannot add data to the model after it is constructed and set
+    up, this simplifies the way that the internal tree of items is managed.
+
+    Models must implement an \c index() function to provide indexes for
+    views and delegates to use when accessing data. Indexes are created
+    for other components when they are referenced by their row and column
+    numbers, and their parent model index. If an invalid model
+    index is specified as the parent, it is up to the model to return an
+    index that corresponds to a top-level item in the model.
+
+    When supplied with a model index, we first check whether it is valid.
+    If it is not, we assume that a top-level item is being referred to;
+    otherwise, we obtain the data pointer from the model index with its
+    \l{QModelIndex::internalPointer()}{internalPointer()} function and use
+    it to reference a \c TreeItem object. Note that all the model indexes
+    that we construct will contain a pointer to an existing \c TreeItem,
+    so we can guarantee that any valid model indexes that we receive will
+    contain a valid data pointer.
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 6
+
+    Since the row and column arguments to this function refer to a
+    child item of the corresponding parent item, we obtain the item using
+    the \c TreeItem::child() function. The
+    \l{QAbstractItemModel::createIndex()}{createIndex()} function is used
+    to create a model index to be returned. We specify the row and column
+    numbers, and a pointer to the item itself. The model index can be used
+    later to obtain the item's data.
+
+    The way that the \c TreeItem objects are defined makes writing the
+    \c parent() function easy:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 7
+
+    We only need to ensure that we never return a model index corresponding
+    to the root item. To be consistent with the way that the \c index()
+    function is implemented, we return an invalid model index for the
+    parent of any top-level items in the model.
+
+    When creating a model index to return, we must specify the row and
+    column numbers of the parent item within its own parent. We can
+    easily discover the row number with the \c TreeItem::row() function,
+    but we follow a convention of specifying 0 as the column number of
+    the parent. The model index is created with
+    \l{QAbstractItemModel::createIndex()}{createIndex()} in the same way
+    as in the \c index() function.
+
+    The \c rowCount() function simply returns the number of child items
+    for the \c TreeItem that corresponds to a given model index, or the
+    number of top-level items if an invalid index is specified:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 8
+
+    Since each item manages its own column data, the \c columnCount()
+    function has to call the item's own \c columnCount() function to
+    determine how many columns are present for a given model index.
+    As with the \c rowCount() function, if an invalid model index is
+    specified, the number of columns returned is determined from the
+    root item:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 2
+
+    Data is obtained from the model via \c data(). Since the item manages
+    its own columns, we need to use the column number to retrieve the data
+    with the \c TreeItem::data() function:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 3
+
+    Note that we only support the \l{Qt::ItemDataRole}{DisplayRole}
+    in this implementation, and we also return invalid QVariant objects for
+    invalid model indexes.
+
+    We use the \c flags() function to ensure that views know that the
+    model is read-only:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 4
+
+    The \c headerData() function returns data that we conveniently stored
+    in the root item:
+
+    \snippet examples/itemviews/simpletreemodel/treemodel.cpp 5
+
+    This information could have been supplied in a different way: either
+    specified in the constructor, or hard coded into the \c headerData()
+    function.
+
+    \section1 Setting Up the Data in the Model
+
+    We use the \c setupModelData() function to set up the initial data in
+    the model. This function parses a text file, extracting strings of
+    text to use in the model, and creates item objects that record both
+    the data and the overall model structure.
+    Naturally, this function works in a way that is very specific to
+    this model. We provide the following description of its behavior,
+    and refer the reader to the example code itself for more information.
+
+    We begin with a text file in the following format:
+
+    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_examples_simpletreemodel.qdoc 0
+    \dots
+    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_examples_simpletreemodel.qdoc 1
+
+    We process the text file with the following two rules:
+
+    \list
+    \o For each pair of strings on each line, create an item (or node)
+       in a tree structure, and place each string in a column of data
+       in the item.
+    \o When the first string on a line is indented with respect to the
+       first string on the previous line, make the item a child of the
+       previous item created.
+    \endlist
+
+    To ensure that the model works correctly, it is only necessary to
+    create instances of \c TreeItem with the correct data and parent item.
+*/