Multi tool use

Why it uses d->eventFilters.prepend(obj) not append(obj) in function(QObject::installEventFilter)

Why it uses d->eventFilters.prepend(obj) not append(obj) in function(QObject::installEventFilter),i want to know why design it in such way.I just curious about it.

d->eventFilters.prepend(obj)

QObject::installEventFilter

void QObject::installEventFilter(QObject *obj)
{
Q_D(QObject);
if (!obj)
return;
if (d->threadData != obj->d_func()->threadData) {
qWarning("QObject::installEventFilter(): Cannot filter events for objects in a different thread.");
return;
}

// clean up unused items in the list
d->eventFilters.removeAll((QObject*)0);
d->eventFilters.removeAll(obj);
d->eventFilters.prepend(obj);
}


1 Answer
1

It's done that way because the most recently installed event filter is to be processed first, i.e. it needs to be at the beginning of the filter list. The filters are invoked by traversing the list in sequential order from begin() to end().

begin()

end()

The most recently installed filter is to be processed first because the only two simple choices are to either process it first or last. And the second choice is not useful: when you filter events, you want to decide what happens before anyone else does. Well, but then some new user's filter will go before yours, so how that can be? As follows: event filters are used to amend functionality - functionality that already exists. If you added a filter somewhere inside the existing functionality, you'd effectively be interfacing to a partially defined system, with unknown behavior. After all, even Qt's implementation uses event filters. They provide the documented behavior. By inserting your event filter last, you couldn't be sure at all what events it will see - it'd all depend on implementation details of every layer of functionality above your filter.

A system with some event filter installed is like a layer of skin on the onion - the user of that system only sees the skin, not what's inside, not the implementation. But they can add their own skin on top if they wish so, and implement new functionality that way. They can't dig into the onion, because they don't know what's in it. Of course that's a generalization: they don't know because it doesn't form an API, a contract between them and the implementation of the system. They are free to read the source code and/or reverse engineer the system, and then insert the event filter anywhere in the list they wish. After all, once you get access to QObjectPrivate, you can modify the event filter list as you wish. But then you're responsible for the behavior of not only what you added on top of the public API, but of many of the underlying layers too - and your responsibility broadens. Updating the toolkit becomes next to impossible, because you'd have to audit the code and/or verify test coverage to make sure that something somewhere in the internals didn't get broken.

QObjectPrivate

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