How to use QAbstractListModel

The following tutorial explains how to create a custom Qt model and use it inside a QTableView.

We want to display a user list. First create a simple User class as follow :

class User 
{
 public : 
    User();
    User(const QString& firstname, const QString& lastname, const QDate& birthday);   
 private:
    QString mFirstname; 
    QString mLastName;
    QDate mBirthday;
}

We are now going to create a model based on QAbstractItemModel. A model is an interface between the view and the data. In the following example, data are a list of User.

class UserModel : public QAbstractItemModel 
{
  Q_OBJECT
 public : 
    UserModel(QObject * parent = 0);
    int rowCount(const QModelIndex& parent = QModelIndex()) const;
    int columnCount(const QModelIndex& parent = QModelIndex()) const;
    QVariant data(const QModelIndex &index, int role) const;
    void populate();
 private:
   QList<User> mDatas;
}

int UserModel::rowCount(const QModelIndex& parent = QModelIndex()) const
   {
      return mDatas.size();
   }
   int UserModel::columnCount(const QModelIndex& parent = QModelIndex()) const
   {
      return 3;
   }

 QVariant UserModel::data(const QModelIndex &index, int role) const
  {
   if (!index.isValid())
       return QVariant();
   if ( role == Qt::DisplayRole)
   {
       if ( index.column() == 0)
           return mDatas[index.row()].firstname();
       if ( index.column() == 1)
           return mDatas[index.row()].lastname();
      if ( index.column() == 2)
           return mDatas[index.row()].birthday();
   }
   return QVariant();
}

void UserModel::populate()
  {
        beginResetModel();
        mDatas.clear();
        mDatas.append(User("Charles", "Darwin", QDate(1812,22,23)));
        mDatas.append(User("Lars", "Knoll", QDate(1976,22,12)));
        mDatas.append(User("Boby", "Lapointe", QDate(1951,21,31)));
        endResetModel();
  }

Now use your mode :

QTableView * view = new QTableView;
UserModel * model = new UserModel;
view->setModel(model);
model->populate()