/**************************************************************************** ** ** 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. ** ** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:FDL$ ** Commercial Usage ** Licensees holding valid Qt Commercial licenses may use this file in ** accordance with the Qt Commercial License Agreement provided with the ** Software or, alternatively, in accordance with the terms contained in a ** written agreement between you and Nokia. ** ** GNU Free Documentation License ** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free ** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software ** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of this ** file. ** ** If you have questions regarding the use of this file, please contact ** Nokia at qt-info@nokia.com. ** $QT_END_LICENSE$ ** ****************************************************************************/ /*! \page propertybinding.html \title Property Binding Property binding is a declarative way of specifying the value of a property. Binding allows a property's value to be expressed as an JavaScript expression that defines the value relative to other property values or data accessible in the application. The property value is automatically kept up to date if the other properties or data values change. Property bindings are created implicitly in QML whenever a property is assigned an JavaScript expression. The following QML uses two property bindings to connect the size of the rectangle to that of \c otherItem. \code Rectangle { width: otherItem.width height: otherItem.height } \endcode QML extends a standards compliant JavaScript engine, so any valid JavaScript expression can be used as a property binding. Bindings can access object properties, make function calls and even use builtin JavaScript objects like \e {Date} and \e {Math}. Assigning a constant value to a property can even be thought of as a binding - afterall, a constant is a valid JavaScript expression! Here are some examples of more complex bindings: \code Rectangle { function calculateMyHeight() { return Math.max(otherItem.height, thirdItem.height); } anchors.centerIn: parent width: Math.min(otherItem.width, 10) height: calculateMyHeight() color: { if (width > 10) "blue"; else "red" } } \endcode While syntactically bindings can be of arbitrary complexity, if a binding starts to become overly complex - such as involving multiple lines, or imperative loops - it may be better to refactor the component entirely, or at least factor the binding out into a separate function. \section1 Changing Bindings The \l PropertyChanges element can be used within a state change to modify the bindings on properties. This example modifies the \l Rectangle's width property binding to be \c {otherItem.height} when in the "square" state. When it returns to its default state, width's original property binding will have been restored. \code Rectangle { id: rectangle width: otherItem.width height: otherItem.height states: State { name: "square" PropertyChanges { target: rectangle width: otherItem.height } } } \endcode Imperatively assigning a value directly to a property will also implicitly remove a binding on a property. A property can only have one value at a time, and if code explicitly sets this value the binding must be removed. The \l Rectangle in the example below will have a width of 13, regardless of the otherItem's width. \code Rectangle { width: otherItem.width Component.onCompleted: { width = 13; } } \endcode There is no way to create a property binding directly from imperative JavaScript code. \section1 Binding Element The implicit binding syntax shown previously is easy to use and works perfectly for most uses of bindings. In some advanced cases, it is necessary to create bindings explicitly using the \l Binding element. For example, to bind a property exposed from C++ (\c system.brightness) to a value coming from QML (\c slider.value), you could use the Binding element as follows: \qml Binding { target: system property: "brightness" value: slider.value } \endqml */