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authorAlexis Menard <alexis.menard@nokia.com>2009-04-17 14:06:06 (GMT)
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+/****************************************************************************
+**
+** Copyright (C) 2009 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
+** Contact: Qt Software Information (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 either Technology Preview License Agreement or the
+** Beta Release License Agreement.
+**
+** 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 1.0, included in the file LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt in this
+** package.
+**
+** GNU General Public License Usage
+** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU
+** General Public License version 3.0 as published by the Free Software
+** Foundation and appearing in the file LICENSE.GPL included in the
+** packaging of this file. Please review the following information to
+** ensure the GNU General Public License version 3.0 requirements will be
+** met: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
+**
+** If you are unsure which license is appropriate for your use, please
+** contact the sales department at qt-sales@nokia.com.
+** $QT_END_LICENSE$
+**
+****************************************************************************/
+
+/*!
+ \page qt4-tulip.html
+ \title The Tulip Container Classes
+
+ \contentspage {What's New in Qt 4}{Home}
+ \previouspage What's New in Qt 4
+ \nextpage The Interview Framework
+
+ Qt 4 introduces a new set of containers that supersede both the old
+ QCollection pointer-based containers and the newer QTL value-based
+ containers.
+
+ \tableofcontents
+
+ \section1 General Overview
+
+ The Tulip containers are similar to Qt 3's QTL containers
+ (QValueList, QValueVector, QMap), but have the following
+ advantages:
+
+ \list
+ \o The containers provide new iterators with a nicer, less
+ error-prone syntax than STL, inspired by Java's iterators. (The
+ STL-style iterators are still available as a lightweight,
+ STL-compatible alternative.)
+
+ \o The containers have been optimized for minimal code expansion.
+
+ \o An empty container performs no memory allocation, and only
+ requires the same space as a pointer.
+
+ \o Even though they are implicitly shared, they can safely be copied
+ across different threads without formality. There's no need to use
+ \c QDeepCopy.
+ \endlist
+
+ Tulip provides the following sequential containers: QList,
+ QLinkedList, QVector, QStack, and QQueue. For most
+ applications, QList is the best type to use. Although it is
+ implemented as an array-list, it provides very fast prepends and
+ appends. If you really need a linked-list, use QLinkedList; if you
+ want your items to occupy consecutive memory locations, use QVector.
+ QStack and QQueue are convenience classes that provide LIFO and
+ FIFO semantics.
+
+ Tulip also provides these associative containers: QMap,
+ QMultiMap, QHash, QMultiHash, and QSet. The "Multi" containers
+ conveniently support multiple values associated with a single
+ key. The "Hash" containers provide faster lookup by using a hash
+ function instead of a binary search on a sorted set.
+
+ The Tulip containers support the \l foreach keyword, a Qt-specific
+ addition to the C++ language that is implemented using the standard
+ C++ preprocessor. The syntax is:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 0
+
+ Example:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 1
+
+ The iterator variable can also be defined outside the loop. For
+ example:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 2
+
+ Just like standard \c for loops, foreach supports braces, \c
+ break, \c continue, and nested loops. Qt makes a copy of the
+ container when it enters the loop. If you modify the container as
+ you are iterating, that won't affect the loop.
+
+ For details about the new containers, see the
+ \l{Generic Containers} and \l{Generic Algorithms} overview documents.
+
+ In addition to the new containers, considerable work has also gone into
+ QByteArray and QString. The Qt 3 QCString class has been
+ merged with QByteArray. The new QByteArray automatically provides
+ a '\0' terminator after the last character. For example, the byte array
+ of size 5 containing "abcde" has a null byte at position 5 (one past
+ the end). This solves all the typical problems that occurred in Qt 3
+ with conversions between QByteArray and QCString.
+
+ To avoid crashes, QByteArray::data() never returns a null
+ pointer. Furthermore, the distinction between null and empty
+ strings has been watered down so that \c{QByteArray() ==
+ QByteArray("")} and \c{QString() == QString("")}.
+
+ \section1 Examples
+
+ The first group of examples show how to use the new Java-style
+ iterators. The main difference between the Java-style iterators and the
+ STL-style iterators is that the Java-style ones point between items (or
+ before the first item, or after the last item), whereas the STL ones
+ point at an item (or past the last item). One advantage of the
+ Java-style iterators is that iterating forward and backward are
+ symmetric operations.
+
+ Traversing a container using a Java-style iterator:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 3
+
+ Modifying items using a Java-style iterator:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 4
+
+ Removing items using a Java-style iterator:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 5
+
+ Iterating over items with a particular value using STL-style vs.
+ Java-style iterators:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 6
+
+ Modifying and removing items using STL-style vs. Java-style
+ iterators:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 7
+
+ The next group of examples show the API of the container classes
+ themselves. The API is similar to the QTL classes of Qt 3, but is nicer
+ in many respects.
+
+ Iterating over a QList using an index (which is fast even for large
+ lists, because QList is implemented as an array-list):
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 8
+
+ Retrieving a value from a map, using a default value if the key
+ doesn't exist:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 9
+
+ Getting all the values for a particular key in a QMultiMap or QMultiHash:
+
+ \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc_src_qt4-tulip.qdoc 10
+
+ \section1 Comparison with Qt 3
+
+ Tulip containers are value based. If you want to store a list where
+ each item is a QWidget *, use QList<QWidget *>.
+
+ The new containers do not support auto-delete. In practice, we
+ discovered that the only case where auto-delete proved worthwhile was
+ when the data really should be stored as a value rather than as a
+ pointer (e.g., QList<int> rather than QList<int *>). If you need
+ to delete all the items in a container, use qDeleteAll().
+
+ If you use QValueList in Qt 3, you can replace it with either
+ QList or QLinkedList in Qt 4. In most cases, QList is the best
+ choice: It is typically faster, results in less code in your
+ executable, and requires less memory. However, QLinkedList's
+ iterators provide stronger guarantees, and only QLinkedList provides
+ constant-time insertions in the middle, which can make a difference for
+ lists with thousands of items.
+
+ If you use QValueVector or QMap in Qt 3, the corresponding Qt 4
+ classes (QVector, QMap) are very similar to use.
+*/