Concurrent Filter and Filter-Reduce | Qt Concurrent (original) (raw)

The QtConcurrent::filter(), QtConcurrent::filtered() and QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() functions filter items in a sequence such as a QList in parallel. QtConcurrent::filter() modifies a sequence in-place, QtConcurrent::filtered() returns a new sequence containing the filtered content, and QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() returns a single result.

These functions are part of the Qt Concurrent framework.

Each of the above functions have a blocking variant that returns the final result instead of a QFuture. You use them in the same way as the asynchronous variants.

Note that the result types above are not QFuture objects, but real result types (in this case, QStringList and QSet<QString>).

Concurrent Filter

QtConcurrent::filtered() takes an input sequence and a filter function. This filter function is then called for each item in the sequence, and a new sequence containing the filtered values is returned.

The filter function must be of the form:

bool function(const T &t);

T must match the type stored in the sequence. The function returns true if the item should be kept, false if it should be discarded.

This example shows how to keep strings that are all lower-case from a QStringList:

The results of the filter are made available through QFuture. See the QFuture and QFutureWatcher documentation for more information on how to use QFuture in your applications.

If you want to modify a sequence in-place, use QtConcurrent::filter():

Since the sequence is modified in place, QtConcurrent::filter() does not return any results via QFuture. However, you can still use QFuture and QFutureWatcher to monitor the status of the filter.

Concurrent Filtered and Continuations

The result of QtConcurrent::filtered() call is a QFuture that contains multiple results. When attaching a .then() continuation to such QFuture, make sure to use a continuation that takes QFuture as a parameter, otherwise only the first result will be processed:

auto keepPositive = [](int val) { return val > 0; };

QList inputs { -1, 1, 2, -3, 5 }; auto badFuture = QtConcurrent::filtered(inputs, keepPositive) .then([](int val) { qDebug() << val; });

auto goodFuture = QtConcurrent::filtered(inputs, keepPositive) .then( f) { for (auto r : f.results()) { qDebug() << r; } });

In this example badFuture will only print a single result, while goodFuture will print all results.

Concurrent Filter-Reduce

QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() is similar to QtConcurrent::filtered(), but instead of returning a sequence with the filtered results, the results are combined into a single value using a reduce function.

The reduce function must be of the form:

V function(T &result, const U &intermediate)

T is the type of the final result, U is the type of items being filtered. Note that the return value and return type of the reduce function are not used.

Call QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() like this:

The reduce function will be called once for each result kept by the filter function, and should merge the intermediate into the result variable. QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() guarantees that only one thread will call reduce at a time, so using a mutex to lock the result variable is not necessary. The QtConcurrent::ReduceOptions enum provides a way to control the order in which the reduction is done.

Additional API Features

Using Iterators instead of Sequence

Each of the above functions has a variant that takes an iterator range instead of a sequence. You use them in the same way as the sequence variants:

Using Member Functions

QtConcurrent::filter(), QtConcurrent::filtered(), and QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() accept pointers to member functions. The member function class type must match the type stored in the sequence:

Note the use of qOverload. It is needed to resolve the ambiguity for the methods, that have multiple overloads.

Also note that when using QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(), you can mix the use of normal and member functions freely:

// can mix normal functions and member functions with QtConcurrent::filteredReduced()

// create a dictionary of all lower cased strings extern bool allLowerCase(const QString &string); QStringList strings = ...; QFuture<QSet<QString>> lowerCase = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(strings, allLowerCase, qOverload<const QString&>(&QSet<QString>::insert));

// create a collage of all gray scale images extern void addToCollage(QImage &collage, const QImage &grayscaleImage); QList images = ...; QFuture collage = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(images, &QImage::isGrayscale, addToCollage);

Using Function Objects

QtConcurrent::filter(), QtConcurrent::filtered(), and QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() accept function objects for the filter function. These function objects can be used to add state to a function call:

struct StartsWith { StartsWith(const QString &string) : m_string(string) { }

bool operator()(const [QString](qstring.html) &testString)
{
    return testString.startsWith(m_string);
}

[QString](qstring.html) m_string;

};

QList<QString> strings = ...; QFuture<QString> fooString = QtConcurrent::filtered(strings, StartsWith(QLatin1String("Foo")));

Function objects are also supported for the reduce function:

struct StringTransform { void operator()(QString &result, const QString &value); };

QFuture<QString> fooString = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(strings, StartsWith(QLatin1String("Foo")), StringTransform());

Using Lambda Expressions

QtConcurrent::filter(), QtConcurrent::filtered(), and QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() accept lambda expressions for the filter and reduce function:

// keep only even integers QList list { 1, 2, 3, 4 }; QtConcurrent::blockingFilter(list, [](int n) { return (n & 1) == 0; });

// retrieve only even integers QList list2 { 1, 2, 3, 4 }; QFuture future = QtConcurrent::filtered(list2, [](int x) { return (x & 1) == 0; }); QList results = future.results();

// add up all even integers QList list3 { 1, 2, 3, 4 }; QFuture sum = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(list3, [](int x) { return (x & 1) == 0; }, [](int &sum, int x) { sum += x; } );

When using QtConcurrent::filteredReduced() or QtConcurrent::blockingFilteredReduced(), you can mix the use of normal functions, member functions and lambda expressions freely.

void intSumReduce(int &sum, int x) { sum += x; }

QList list { 1, 2, 3, 4 }; QFuture sum = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(list, [] (int x) { return (x & 1) == 0; }, intSumReduce );

You can also pass a lambda as a reduce object:

bool keepEvenIntegers(int x) { return (x & 1) == 0; }

QList list { 1, 2, 3, 4 }; QFuture sum = QtConcurrent::filteredReduced(list, keepEvenIntegers, [](int &sum, int x) { sum += x; } );

Wrapping Functions that Take Multiple Arguments

If you want to use a filter function takes more than one argument, you can use a lambda function or std::bind() to transform it onto a function that takes one argument.

As an example, we use QString::contains():

QString::contains() takes 2 arguments (including the "this" pointer) and can't be used with QtConcurrent::filtered() directly, because QtConcurrent::filtered() expects a function that takes one argument. To use QString::contains() with QtConcurrent::filtered() we have to provide a value for the regexp argument: