Q3StrList Class Reference

Detailed Description

The Q3StrList class provides a doubly-linked list of char*.

If you want a string list of QStrings use QStringList.

This class is a Q3PtrList<char> instance (a list of char*).

Q3StrList can make deep or shallow copies of the strings that are inserted.

A deep copy means that memory is allocated for the string and then the string data is copied into that memory. A shallow copy is just a copy of the pointer value and not of the string data itself.

The disadvantage of shallow copies is that because a pointer can be deleted only once, the program must put all strings in a central place and know when it is safe to delete them (i.e. when the strings are no longer referenced by other parts of the program). This can make the program more complex. The advantage of shallow copies is that they consume far less memory than deep copies. It is also much faster to copy a pointer (typically 4 or 8 bytes) than to copy string data.

A Q3StrList that operates on deep copies will, by default, turn on auto-deletion (see setAutoDelete()). Thus, by default Q3StrList will deallocate any string copies it allocates.

The virtual compareItems() function is reimplemented and does a case-sensitive string comparison. The inSort() function will insert strings in sorted order. In general it is fastest to insert the strings as they come and sort() at the end; inSort() is useful when you just have to add a few extra strings to an already sorted list.

The Q3StrListIterator class is an iterator for Q3StrList.