Sorting QObject children

Question

i noticed that QObject::children() method return a const reference to QObjectList, that contains the children of the qobject. Will it be safe to cast away the constness and sort the list with qSort?

Thanks Anton

Answer 1

No, you should not do this. This is the definition of QObject::children():

inline const QObjectList &children() const { return d_ptr->children; }

This means you directly get the reference of the internal objectlist. And the documentation says:

Note that the list order changes when QWidget children are raised or lowered. A widget that is raised becomes the last object in the list, and a widget that is lowered becomes the first object in the list.

It looks like a bad idea to mess with this list.

Answer 2

Maybe. But why risk it? Can't you just copy the QObjectList and sort your local copy?