4: Beginning Qt Development in Visual C#.NET

Paint Data Matrix ECC200 in Visual C#.NET 4: Beginning Qt Development

Listing 4 7. Starting the Qt thread for network access and data parsing void MainForm::fetch() { if (!mBgThread) mBgThread = new WorkerThread(this, *mEventModel); connect(mBgThread, SIGNAL(finished()), this, SLOT(handleRequestFinished())); connect(mBgThread, SIGNAL(error(const QString&)), this, SLOT(handleError(const QString&))); mBgThread->fetch( "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/1day-M2.5.xml" ); }

This code is quite simple. In addition to creating an instance of our worker thread, the code connects its signals to slots in the main view so that the main view can respond to success or failure in the attempt to obtain data from the network. The thread itself is responsible for making the HTTP request and parsing the XML results. Construction of the thread (see Listing 4 8) initializes a hash with the XML tags we seek, and does the necessary connecting between signals and slots.

Listing 4 8. Worker thread initialization WorkerThread::WorkerThread(QObject* owner, QuakeListModel& eventModel) : QThread(owner) , mCancelled(false) , mNetManager(0) , mReply(0) , mEventModel(eventModel) { // Initialize the hashtable of tags we seek mXmlTags.append("id"); mXmlTags.append("title"); mXmlTags.append("updated"); mXmlTags.append("summary"); mXmlTags.append("point"); mXmlTags.append("elev"); mXmlTags.append("link"); mNetManager = new QNetworkAccessManager(this); connect(mNetManager, SIGNAL(finished(QNetworkReply*)), this, SLOT(handleNetFinished(QNetworkReply*))); }

Performing the HTTP request, done in the fetch method with the URL you pass it, is very easy. Listing 4 9 shows how it s done.

Listing 4 9. Making an HTTP request void WorkerThread::fetch(const QString& url) { QNetworkReply *reply = mNetManager->get(QNetworkRequest(QUrl(url))); if (!reply) { emit error(tr("Could not contact the server")); } }

It s worth noting that the QNetworkAccessManager s get method does not block; control returns to the main thread, and the manager performs the network request asynchronously. In fact, the real reason to encapsulate this part of the application in its own thread is the XML parsing, which can take a bit of time in a large document. When the network operation completes, the manager will emit the finished signal, which we handle in handleNetFinished (Listing 4 10).

Listing 4 10. Handling the completion of the network transaction void WorkerThread::handleNetFinished(QNetworkReply* reply) { // Start parser by starting. if (reply->error() == QNetworkReply::NoError) { if (!this->isRunning()) { mReply = reply; start(); } } else { emit error(tr("A network error occurred")); qDebug() << QString("net error %1").arg(reply->error()); } }

The USGS data provides its data in well-formed XML. A specific seismic event might look like this:

<entry> <id>urn:earthquake-usgs-gov:ci:10756957</id> <title>M 3.8, Baja California, Mexico</title> <updated>2010-07-19T23:06:11Z</updated> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="url"/> <link rel="related" type="application/cap+xml" href="url" /> <summary type="html"> <![CDATA html description of event ]]></summary> <georss:point>32.1465 -115.1627</georss:point> <georss:elev>-6300</georss:elev> <category label="Age" term="Past hour"/> </entry>

This is contained within a root-level <feed> block. (For brevity, we ve elided the actual URLs and HTML content describing the event.) The only catch in working with the data is that the <id> attribute uniquely identifies an event, but multiple <entry> items may

have the same <id>. This can occur when the USGS provides updated information about a seismic event, such as after collecting more data and refining the estimate. Consequently, we must not only parse the XML <entry> items in the document, but also de-duplicate the data by ID, taking the most recent item when multiple items exist. Fortunately, there s an easy way to do this accumulate the <entry> items in a hash indexed by the <id> field s value. Listing 4 11 shows the parsing and de-duplication that begins when the thread actually runs.

Listing 4 11. Parsing and de-duplicating the XML results void WorkerThread::run() { QuakeEvent anEvent; QXmlStreamReader xml; QXmlStreamReader::TokenType type; QString fieldName; QString value; QString tag; QMap<QString, QuakeEvent> events; bool successful = false; bool gotValue = false; bool gotEntry = false; xml.setDevice(mReply); while(!xml.atEnd()) { // If we've been cancelled, stop processing. if (mCancelled) break; type = xml.readNext(); QString tag = xml.name().toString().toLower(); switch( type ) { case QXmlStreamReader::StartElement: { gotValue = false; if (tag == "entry") { gotEntry = true; } else if (mXmlTags.contains(tag)) { fieldName = tag; } else { fieldName = QString(); } } break; case QXmlStreamReader::Characters: // Save aside any text if ( gotEntry && !fieldName.isEmpty() && !gotValue) { value = xml.text().toString(); gotValue = true; } break; case QXmlStreamReader::EndElement: // Save aside this value if (gotValue && tag != "entry") {