• Programming PerlTQt
• Introduction
• Installation
• Requirements
• Compilation
• Troubleshooting and Configure Options
• How to install PerlTQt with user rights
• Anatomy of PerlTQt
• Hello World
• Inheritance and Objects
• A Custom Widget
• Using Attributes
• Signals and Slots
• RAD prototyping with TQt Designer and Puic
• Introduction
• Embedding Images
• Working With .ui Files
• More development tools
• pqtapi
• pqtsh
• Known Limitations
• Credits
• Appendix 1 : C++ conventions and their Perl counterpart
• Appendix 2 : Internationalization
• disabling utf-8
• Appendix 3 : Debugging Channels
• Appendix 4 : Marshallers

Programming PerlTQt

Germain Garand

This document describes a set of Perl bindings for the TQt toolkit. Contact the author at <germain@ebooksfrance.com>

Introduction

PerlTQt-3 is Ashley Winters' full featured object oriented interface to Trolltech's C++ TQt toolkit v3.0.

It is based on the SMOKE library, a language independent low-level wrapper generated from TQt headers by Richard Dale's kalyptus thanks to David Faure's module.

This document describes the principles of PerlTQt programming. It assumes you have some basic Perl Object Oriented programming knowledge.

Some C++ knowledge is recommended but not required. It would mostly help you to find your way through TQt's excellent documentation which is our ultimate and only reference. If TQt is installed on your system, then you most probably also have its documentation. Try the $TQTDIR/bin/assistant program.

Installation

Requirements

To compile and use PerlTQt, you'll need :

a POSIX system
GNU tools : automake(>=1.5), autoconf (>=2.13), aclocal...
Perl >= v5.6.0
TQt >= v3.0
SmokeTQt 1.2.1 The SMOKE library (Scripting Meta Object Kompiler) is part of KDE's kdebindings module. You may want to check if a precompiled version of this module exists for your system. PerlTQt is packaged with its own copy, so you don't need to check it out.

Perl and TQt's installation is out of the scope of this document. Please refer to those projects' documentation.

Compilation

PerlTQt uses GNU's Autoconf framework. However, the standard ./configure script is preferably driven by the Makefile.PL wrapper. All options are forwarded to ./configure :

 perl Makefile.PL

If SMOKE is missing, configure will generate its sources. Then :

 make

 make install

This will install PerlTQt, Puic and Smoke (if needed), as well as the pqtsh and pqtapi utilities.

The preferred install location for SMOKE and Puic is in the KDE3 file system. If you don't have KDE3 installed, specify a location with configure's --prefix option. e.g:

 perl Makefile.PL --prefix=/usr

Troubleshooting and Configure Options

If Smoke's linking fails or your TQt library was built with very specific options, run Makefile.PL again with:

 perl Makefile.PL --with-threshold=0

When building smoke, configure will check for OpenGL and try to compile support for it if it is properly installed and supported by TQt.

You may disable this checking with:

 --disable-GL

Also, default behaviour is to prefer the Mesa GL library over a proprietary implementation. If your system features a proprietary OpenGL library, and you'd like to use it, specify:

 --without-Mesa

How to install PerlTQt with user rights

To install PerlTQt without super-user rights, simply follow this procedure:

Perform a normal configuration, specifying as prefix a directory where you have write permissions :

 perl Makefile.PL --prefix=~

The above would install the Smoke library in ~/lib and the puic binary in ~/bin

Reconfigure the Perl module so that it doesn't target the standard perl hierarchy:

 cd PerlTQt
 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~
 cd ..

Beware : this is not the same Makefile.PL as above, but the one located in the ./PerlTQt subdirectory

Compile and Install

 make && make install

In order to use such an installation, you must tell to Perl where to find this extern hierarchy. This can be done either on the command line:

 perl -Mlib="~/local/lib/perl/5.x.x" program.pl

or at the top of your program:

 use lib qw( ~/local/lib/perl/5.x.x );

``5.x.x'' should be changed to whatever Perl version your system is running.

Anatomy of PerlTQt

A typical TQt program using GUI components is based on an event loop.

This basically means that such a program is no more envisioned as a straight flow where you would need to handle yourself every single events (such as a mouse click or a key press).

Instead, you just create an Application object, create the GUI components it uses, define what objects methods need to be called when an event occurs, and then start the main event loop.

That's all! TQt will handle all events and dispatch them to the correct subroutine.

Lets see how this process is implemented in a minimal PerlTQt program.

Hello World

 1: use TQt;
 2: my $a = TQt::Application(\@ARGV);
 3: my $hello = TQt::PushButton("Hello World!", undef);
 4: $hello->resize(160, 25);
 5: $a->setMainWidget($hello);
 6: $hello->show;
 7: exit $a->exec;

This program first loads the TQt interface [line 1] and creates the application object, passing it a reference to the command line arguments array @ARGV [l.2]. This application object is unique, and may later be accessed from anywhere through the TQt::app() pointer.

At line 3, we create a PushButton, which has no parent (i.e : it won't be contained nor owned by another widget). Therefore, we pass to the constructor an undef value for the parent argument, which is PerlTQt's way of passing a Null pointer.

After some layouting at [l.4], we tell the application object that our main widget is this PushButton [l.5]... that way, it will know that closing the window associated with this widget means : quit the application.

Now the last steps are to make this widget visible (as opposed to hidden, which is the default) by calling the show method on it [l.6] and to start the application loop [l.7].

Syntax elements summary :

All TQt classes are accessed through the prefix TQt::, which replaces the initial Q of TQt classes. When browsing the TQt documentation, you simply need to change the name of classes so that TQFoo reads TQt::Foo.
An object is created by calling the constructor of the class. It has the same name as the class itself.

You don't need to say new TQt::Foo or TQt::Foo->new() as most Perl programmers would have expected.

Instead, you just say :

 my $object = TQt::<classname>(arg_1, ..., arg_n);

If you don't need to pass any argument to the constructor, simply say :

 my $object = TQt::<classname>;

Whenever you need to pass a Null pointer as an argument, use Perl's undef keyword. Do not pass zero. Beware: this is by far the most common error in PerlTQt programs.

Pointers are arguments preceded by an * character in TQt's documentation (e.g: ``TQWidget * widget'').

Inheritance and Objects

Before we can discuss how Perl subroutines can be called back from TQt, we need to introduce PerlTQt's inheritance mechanism.

PerlTQt was designed to couple as tightly as possible TQt's simplicity and Perl's power and flexibility.

In order to achieve that goal, the classical Object Oriented Perl paradigm had to be extended, much in the same way than TQt itself had to extend C++'s paradigm with metaobjects.

A Custom Widget

Lets rewrite the ``Hello World!'' program, this time using a custom version of PushButton:

  1: use strict;
  2: 
  3: package Button;
  4: use TQt;
  5: use TQt::isa qw(TQt::PushButton);
  6: 
  7: sub NEW
  8: {
  9:   shift->SUPER::NEW(@_[0..2]);
 10:   resize(130, 40);
 11: }
 12: 
 13: 1;
 14: 
 15: package main;
 16: 
 17: use TQt;
 18: use Button;
 19: 
 20: my $a = TQt::Application(\@ARGV);
 21: my $w = Button("Hello World!", undef);
 22: $a->setMainWidget($w);
 23: $w->show;
 24: exit $a->exec;

Here, we want to create our own version of the PushButton widget. Therefore, we create a new package for it [l.3] and import TQt [l.4].

We now want to declare our widget as subclassing PushButton. This is done through the use of the TQt::isa pragma [l.5], which accepts a list of one or more parent TQt classes.

It is now time to create a constructor for our new widget. This is done by creating a subroutine called NEW (note the capitalized form, which differentate it from the usual ``new'' constructor. PerlTQt's NEW constructor is called implicitly as can be seen on line 21).

Since we want our widget to call its parent's constructor first, we call the superclass's constructor (here: TQt::PushButton) on line 9, passing it all arguments we received.

At this time, a class instance has been created and stored into a special object holder named this (not $this but really just this).

Each time you invoke a method from within your package, you may now indifferently say method() or this->method();

Using Attributes

When building a new composite widget, you may just create its different parts inside my variables, since widgets are only deleted by their parents and not necessarily when their container goes out of scope.

In other words, PerlTQt performs clever reference counting to prevent indesirable deletion of objects.

Now, you'll often want to keep an access to those parts from anywhere inside your package. For this purpose, you may use the this object's blessed hash, as is usual in Perl, but that isn't really convenient and you don't have any compile time checking...

Here come Attributes. Attributes are data holders where you can store any kind of properties for your object.

Declaring new attributes is done through the use TQt::attributes pragma, as is demonstrated in the following package implementation :

  1: use strict;
  2:
  3: package Button;
  4: use TQt;
  5: use TQt::isa qw(TQt::PushButton);
  6: use TQt::attributes qw(
  7:     itsTime
  8:     pData
  9: );
 10:
 11: sub NEW
 12: {
 13:   shift->SUPER::NEW(@_[0..2]);
 14:   itsTime = TQt::Time;
 15:   itsTime->start;   
 16:   pData = " Foo ";
 17: }
 18: 
 19: sub resizeEvent
 20: {
 21:    setText( "w: ". width() ." h: ". height() .
 22:             "\nt: ". itsTime->elapsed . pData );
 23: }
 24:
 25: 1;

An attribute itsTime is declared at line 7, and loaded with a TQt::Time object at line 14.

Since we reimplement the virtual function ``resizeEvent'' [l.19]. each time the main widget is resized, this function will be triggered and our Button's text updated with values coming from the object [l.21] and from the attributes we defined [l.22].

Recapitulation

In order to inherit a TQt class, a package must contain a use TQt::isa pragma. e.g:

 use TQt::isa "TQt::widget";

The object constructor is named NEW and is implicitly called. Thus you should not say :

 my $o = MyButton->NEW("Hello");

But say :

 my $o = MyButton("Hello");

Within a package, the current instance can be accessed through the this variable.

When a member function is called, arguments are loaded as usual in the @_ array, but without the object pointer itself.

Hence, you shouldn't say :

 sub myMember
 {
   my $self = shift;
   my $arg = shift;
   $arg->doThat($self); 
   $self->doIt;
 }
    
But :

 sub myMember
 {
   my $arg = shift;
   $arg->doThat(this);
   doIt;
 }

Furthermore, if you want to call a base class method from a derived class, you'd use the specal attribute SUPER :

 sub example
 {
   print "Now calling the base class\n";
   SUPER->example(@_)
 }

Note that the :

 this->SUPER::Example(@_);

construct is also available, but will pass the object as first argument.

Whenever you need to store a contained object in your package, you may define it as an Attribute :

 use TQt::attributes qw(
        firstAttribute
        ...
        lastAttribute);

and then use it as a convenient accessor :

 firstAttribute = myContainedWidget( this );
 firstAttribute->resize( 100, 100 );

To reimplement a virtual function, simply create a sub with the same name in your object.

Existing virtual functions are marked as such in TQt's documentation (they are prefixed with the ``virtual'' keyword).

You can inspect what virtual function names are being called by TQt at runtime by putting a use TQt::debug qw( virtual ) statement at the top of your program.

Signals and Slots

We'll now learn how TQt objects can communicate with each other, allowing an event occuring, for instance, in a given widget to trigger the execution of one or several subroutines anywhere inside your program.

Most other toolkits use callbacks for that purpose, but TQt has a much more powerful and flexible mechanism called Signals and Slots.

Signals and slots are used for communication between objects.

This can be thought off as something similar to the wiring between several Hi-fI components : an amplificator, for instance, has a set of output signals, wich are emitted wether a listening device is connected to them or not. Also, a tape recorder deck can start to record when it receives a signal wired to it's input slot, and it doesn't need to know that this signal is also received by a CD recorder device, or listened through headphones.

A TQt component behaves just like that. It has several output Signals and several input Slots - and each signal can be connected to an unlimited number of listening slots of the same type, wether they are inside or outside the component.

The general syntax of this connection process is either :

TQt::Object::connect( sender, TQT_SIGNAL 'mysignal(arg_type)', receiver, TQT_SLOT 'myslot(arg_type)');

or

myObject->connect( sender, TQT_SIGNAL 'mysignal(arg_type)', TQT_SLOT 'myslot(arg_type)');

This mechanism can be extended at will by the declaration of custom Signals and Slots, through the use TQt::signals and use TQt::slots pragma (see also the other syntax, later on).

Each declared slot will call the corresponding subroutine in your object, each declared signal can be raised through the emit keyword.

As an example, lets rewrite again our Button package :

  1: use strict;
  2:
  3: package Button;
  4: use TQt;
  5: use TQt::isa qw(TQt::PushButton);
  6: use TQt::attributes qw(itsTime);
  7: use TQt::slots 
  8:     wasClicked => [],
  9:     change     => ['int', 'int'];
 10: use TQt::signals
 11:     changeIt   => ['int', 'int'];
 12:
 13: sub NEW
 14: {
 15:   shift->SUPER::NEW(@_[0..2]);
 16:   itsTime = TQt::Time;
 17:   itsTime->start;   
 18:   this->connect(this, TQT_SIGNAL 'clicked()', TQT_SLOT 'wasClicked()');
 19:   this->connect(this, TQT_SIGNAL 'changeIt(int,int)', TQT_SLOT 'change(int,int)');
 20: }
 21: 
 22: sub wasClicked
 23: {
 24:    my $w = width();
 25:    my $h = height();
 26:    setText( "w: $w h: $h\nt: ". itsTime->elapsed );
 27:    emit changeIt($w, $h);          
 28: }
 29:
 30: sub change
 31: {
 32:    my ($w, $h) = @_;
 33:    print STDERR "w: $w h: $h \n";
 34: }
 35:
 36: 1;

In this package, we define two extra slots and one extra signal.

We know from the TQt Documentation that a clicked PushButton emits a clicked() signal, so we connect it to our new slot at line 18.

We also connect our signal changeIt to our own change slot- which is quite stupid, but as an example.

Now, whenever our Button is clicked, the clicked() signal is raised and triggers the wasClicked() slot. wasClicked then proceeds to emit the changeIt(int,int) signal [l.27], hence triggering the change(int,int) slot with two arguments.

Finally, since PerlTQt-3.008, an alternative syntax can be used to declare Signals and Slots:

 sub a_slot : TQT_SLOT(int, TQString)
 { 
        $int = shift;
        $string = shift;
        # do something
 }

and

 sub a_signal : TQT_SIGNAL(TQString);

This syntax is perfectly compatible with the traditional use TQt::signals and use TQt::slots declarations.

Eventually, it can prove good programming practice to mix both syntaxes, by first declaring Signals/Slots with use TQt::slots/signals, then repeat this declaration in the actual implementation with the second syntax.

Declarations will be checked for consistency at compile time, and any mismatch in arguments would trigger a warning.

RAD prototyping with TQt Designer and Puic

Introduction

• Note:
  
As of PerlTQt-3.008, a separate PerlTQt plugin for TQt Designer is available, bringing full integration, syntax highlighting, code completion and allowing to run/debug your PerlTQt project entirely from the Designer GUI. Nevertheless, the below is still accurate with regard to puic command line interaction and with regard to using TQt Designer without the specific plugin.

As efficient and intuitive as TQt can be, building a complete GUI from scratch is often a tedious task.

Hopefully, TQt comes with a very sophisticated GUI Builder named TQt Designer, which is close to a complete integrated development environment. It features Project management, drag'n drop GUI building, a complete object browser, graphical interconnection of signals and slots, and much much more.

TQt Designer's output is XML which can be parsed by several command line tools, among whose is puic (the PerlTQt User Interface Compiler).

Assuming you have already built an interface file with the Designer, translating it to a PerlTQt program is simply a matter of issuing one command :

 puic -x -o program.pl program.ui

This will generate the package defined in your ui file and a basic main package for testing purposes.

You may prefer :

 puic -o package.pm program.ui

This will only generate the package, which can then be used by a separate program.

Embedding Images

If you need to embed images or icons, it can be done in two ways :

• Inline embedding
  
For this, you need to check the ``Edit->Form Settings->Pixmaps->Save inline'' checkbox inside TQt Designer. Then : puic -x -o program.pl program.ui
• Image Collection
  
This option is more complex but also far more powerful and clean.

puic -o Collection.pm -embed unique_identifier image-1 ... image-n

Then add a use Collection.pm statement to your program's main package.

If you've created a project file in TQt Designer, and added all images you want to group (through ``Project->Image Collection''), you'll find all those images inside the directory where your project file (*.pro) is stored, under /images. You can then generate the corresponding image collection by issuing :

puic -o Collection.pm -embed identifier ../images/*

You can use as many image collections as you want in a program. Simply add a use statement for each collection.

Working With .ui Files

It will often happen that you need to regenerate your user interface -either because you changed your initial design, or you want to extend it. Thus writing your program's code straight in the auto-generated Perl file is quite a bad idea. You'd run constantly the risk of overwriting your handcrafted code, or end up doing lot of copy-paste.

Instead, you may :

• Write slots implementation in the Designer
  
In TQt Designer, select the Source tab of the Object Explorer. There you can see a tree-like representation of your classes. Now if you double-click on the Slots/public entry, you are prompted with a dialog where you can create a new custom slot for your module. Once this is done, the new slot appear inside the Object Explorer tree and clicking on it will bring you to a <Your Class>.ui.h file where you can write the actual implementation of your slot.

Keeping all the defaults, it should look like this :

 void Form1::newSlot()
 {
 
 }

The slot declaration is actually C++ code, but simply ignore it and write your Perl code straight between the two braces, paying special attention to indent it at least by one space.

 void Form1::newSlot()
 {
     print STDERR "Hello world from Form1::newSlot();
     if(this->foo())
     {
         # do something
     }
 }

All Perl code written this way will be saved to the ui.h file, and puic will take care of placing it back in the final program.

Here, after running puic on the Form1.ui file, you'd have:

 sub newSlot
 {
     print STDERR "Hello world from Form1::newSlot();
     if(this->foo())
     {
         # do something
     }
 }

• Subclassing your GUI
  
By using puic's -subimpl option, you may generate a derived module inheriting your original user interface.

You'd typically generate the derived module once, and write any handcrafted code in this child. Then, whenever you need to modify your GUI module, simply regenerate the parent module, and your child will inherit those changes.

To generate the base module :

 puic -o Form1.pm form1.ui

(do this as often as needed, never edit by hand)

To generate the child :

 puic -o Form2.pm -subimpl Form2 form1.ui

or

 puic -o program.pl -x -subimpl Form2 form1.ui

(do this once and work on the resulting file)

More development tools

PerlTQt comes bundled with two simple programs that can help you to find your way through the TQt API:

pqtapi

pqtapi is a commandline driven introspection tool.

 usage: pqtapi [-r <re>] [<class>]

 options:
        -r <re> : find all functions matching regular expression/keyword <re>
        -i : together with -r, performs a case insensitive search
        -v : print PerlTQt and TQt versions
        -h : print this help message

e.g:

 $>pqtapi -ir 'setpoint.* int'
        void TQCanvasLine::setPoints(int, int, int, int)
        void TQPointArray::setPoint(uint, int, int)

pqtsh

pqtsh is a graphical shell that can be used to test the API interactively. It is fairly self explanatory and includes an interactive example (Help->Example)

Known Limitations

Templated classes aren't available yet (classes derived from templated classes are).

Credits

PerlTQt-3 is (c) 2002 Ashley Winters (and (c) 2003 Germain Garand)

Kalyptus and the Smoke generation engine are (c) David Faure and Richard Dale

Puic is (c) TrollTech AS., Phil Thompson and Germain Garand,

The mentioned software is released under the GNU Public Licence v.2 or later.

Appendix 1 : C++ conventions and their Perl counterpart

Whenever you want to use a class/method described in TQt's documentation (see also the 'assistant' program bundled with TQt) from PerlTQt, you need to follow some simple translation rules.

Classnames

All classnames are changed from a Q prefix in TQt to a TQt:: prefix in Perl. e.g: TQComboBox is named TQt::ComboBox within PerlTQt.

Functions

Functions referenced as static are accessed directly, and not through an object. Thus the static function Foo in class TQBar would be accessed from PerlTQt as

 TQt::Bar::Foo( arg-1,...,arg-n);

The only notable exceptions are :

 qApp()     will map to TQt::app()
 qVersion() will map to TQt::version() # not really needed anymore: we have qVersion(). See Global Functions below.

Functions referenced as members or Signals are accessed through an object with the -> operator. e.g:

 $widget->show;

There are no fundamental differences between methods and signals, however PerlTQt provides the emit keyword as a convenient mnemonic, so that it is clear you are emitting a signal :

 emit $button->clicked;

Arguments

• By value
  
When an argument isn't preceded by the & or * character, it is passed by value. For all basic types such as int, char, float and double, PerlTQt will automatically convert litteral and scalar values to the corresponding C++ type.

Thus for a constructor prototype written as follow in the documentation :

 TQSize ( int w, int h )

You'd say :

 TQt::Size(8, 12);

• By reference
  
When an argument is preceded by the & character, it means a reference to an object or to a type is expected. You may either provide a variable name or a temporary object :

 $keyseq = TQt::keySequence( &TQt::CTRL + &TQt::F3 );
 $widget->setAccel( $keyseq );
 
or

 $widget->setAccel(TQt::keySequence( &TQt::CTRL + &TQt::F3 );

If the argument isn't qualified as const (constant), it means the passed object may be altered during the process - you must then provide a variable.

• By pointer
  
When an argument is preceded by the * character, it means a pointer to an object or to a type is expected. You may provide a variable name or the Perl undef keyword for a Null pointer.

Similarly, if the argument isn't const, the passed object may be altered by the method call.

Enumerations

Enumerations are sort of named aliases for numeric values that would be hard to remember otherwise.

A C++ example would be :

 enum Strange { Apple, Orange, Lemon }

where Strange is the generic enumeration name, and Apple, Orange, Lemon its possible values, which are only aliases for numbers (here 0, 1 and 2).

Access to enumerations values in Perl TQt is very similar to a static function call. In fact, it is a static function call.

Therefore, since you probably want to avoid some readability problems, we recommend the use of the alternate function call syntax : &function.

Lets now go back to our Strange example.

If its definition was encountered in the class TQFruits, you'd write from PerlTQt :

 $apple_plus_orange = &TQt::Fruit::Apple + &TQt::Fruit::Orange;

Operators

Within PerlTQt, operators overloading works transparently. If a given operator is overloaded in a TQt class (which means using it triggers a custom method) it will behave identically in PerlTQt. Beware though that due to limitations of the Smoke binding library, not all overloaded operators are available in PerlTQt. You can check the availability of a given operator by using the pqtapi program. Also, due to outstanding differences between C++'s and Perl's object paradigm, the copy constructor operator (a.k.a '=') has been disabled.

e.g-1: '+=' overload

 $p1 = TQt::Point(10, 10)
 $p2 = TQt::Point(30,40)
 $p2 += $p1; # $p2 becomes (40,50)
 
e.g-2: '<<' overload

 $f = TQt::File("example");
 $f->open( IO_WriteOnly ); # see 'Constants' below
 $s = TQt::TextStream( $f );
 $s << "What can I do with " << 12 << " apples?";

Constants

TQt doesn't use many constants, but there is at least one place where they are used : for setting Input/Output flags on files. In order to avoid the namespace pollution induced by global constants, PerlTQt group them in the TQt::constants module. For instance, requesting the importation of all IO constants into the current namespace would be done with:

 use TQt::constants;

You may also import specific symbols:

 use TQt::constants qw( IO_ReadOnly IO_WriteOnly );

Global Functions

TQt has also some utilitarian functions such as bitBlt, qCompress, etc.

Those were global scope functions and have been grouped in a common namespace: TQt::GlobalSpace.

Hence, you shall access this namespace either with a fully qualified call:

 TQt::GlobalSpace::tqUncompress( $buffer )

Or directly, after importation in the current namespace:

 use TQt::GlobalSpace;
 tqUncompress( $buffer )

Of course, you may selectively import a few functions:

 use TQt::GlobalSpace qw( tqUncompress bitBlt )

Note: GlobalSpace has also operators, such has the one performing an addition on two TQt::Point(). Those operators are called automatically.

e.g:

 $p1 = TQt::Point(10, 10) + TQt::Point(20, 20)

Appendix 2 : Internationalization

PerlTQt handles internationalization by always converting TQString back to utf8 in Perl.

Conversions from Perl strings to TQStrings are made according to context :

• If the Perl string is already utf8-encoded
  
then the string will be converted straight to TQString.

This is the most convenient and seemless way of internationalizing your application. Typically, one would just enable the use of utf8 in source code with the use utf8 pragma and write its application with an utf8 aware editor.

• If the string isn't tagged as utf8, and the use locale pragma is not set
  
then the string will be converted to TQString's utf8 from ISO-Latin-1.
• If the string isn't tagged as utf8 and the use locale pragma is set
  
then the string will be converted to TQString's utf8 according to the currently set locale.

Once a string contains utf8, you can convert it back to any locale by setting up converters :

 $tr1=TQt::TextCodec::codecForLocale(); # this one will use current locale
 $tr2=TQt::TextCodec::codecForName("KOI8-R"); # that one forces a specific locale (Russian)

 print $tr1->fromUnicode(TQt::DateTime::currentDateTime()->toString)."\n\n";
 print $tr2->fromUnicode($my_utf8_string);

Or, with Perl >= 5.8.0, you may use Perl's Encode modules (see perldoc Encode).

disabling utf-8

Developers who don't want to use UTF-8 or want to temporarily disable UTF-8 marshalling for handling legacy programs may use the use bytes pragma (and the corresponding no bytes).

Within the scope of this pragma, TQStrings are marshalled back to ISO-Latin1 (default) or to your locale (if use locale has been set).

Frivole use of this pragma is strongly discouraged as it ruins worldwide standardization efforts.

Appendix 3 : Debugging Channels

The TQt::debug module offers various debugging channels/features.

 use TQt::debug;

 use TQt::debug qw|calls autoload verbose|;

With the simple use TQt::debug statement, the verbose and ambiguous channels are activated. If you specify a list of channels within the use statement, then only the specified channels will be enabled.

Available channels :

• ambiguous
  
Check if method and function calls are ambiguous, and tell which of the alternatives was finally elected.
• verbose
  
Enable more verbose debugging.

Together with ambiguous, tell you the nearest matches in case a method or function call fails. e.g:

 use TQt;
 use TQt::debug;
 $a= TQt::Application(\@ARGV);
 $a->libraryPath("foo");

 --- No method to call for :
        TQApplication::libraryPath('foo')
 Closer candidates are :
        static void TQApplication::addLibraryPath(const TQString&)
        static TQStringList TQApplication::libraryPaths()
        static void TQApplication::removeLibraryPath(const TQString&)
        static void TQApplication::setLibraryPaths(const TQStringList&)

• calls
  
For every call, tell what corresponding TQt method is called (detailing the arguments if verbose is on).
• autoload
  
Track the intermediate code between a method invocation in Perl and its resolution to either a TQt or Perl call.
• gc
  
Give informations about garbage collection whenever a TQt object is deleted and/or a Perl object is destroyed
• virtual
  
Report whenever a virtual function tries to access its Perl reimplementation (wether it exists or not).
• all
  
Enable all channels

Appendix 4 : Marshallers

A marshaller is a piece of ``glue code'' translating a given datatype to another.

Within PerlTQt, most TQt objects keep their object nature, so that one may invoke methods on them. However, some classes and datatypes map so naturally to some Perl types that keeping their object nature would would feel unnatural and clumsy.

For instance, instead of returning a TQt::StringList object, which would require an iterator to retrieve its content, PerlTQt will translate it to an array reference containing all the object's strings.

In the other way, instead of providing a TQt::StringList object as an argument of a method, one would simply provide the reference to an array of Perl strings.

Here is the list of Marshallers as of PerlTQt-3.008 :

 -----------------------------------------------------------------
 float, double                         <=>       Perl real (NV)
 char, uchar, int, uint, enum
 long, ulong, short, ushort            <=>       Perl integer (IV)
 TQString, -&, -*                        =>       Perl string (utf8)
 TQString, -&, -*                       <=        Perl string (utf8 or iso-latin1 or locale)
 TQCString, -&, -*                      <=>       Perl string (utf8 or bytes, according to content or "bytes" pragma)
 TQByteArray, -&, -*                    <=>       Perl string (bytes)
 TQStringList, -&, -*                    =>       Reference to an array of Perl strings (utf8)
 TQString, -&, -*                        =>       Perl string (utf8 or iso-latin1 or locale)
 int&, -*                              <=>       Perl integer (IV)
 bool&, -*                             <=>       Perl boolean
 char*                                 <=>       Perl string (bytes)
 char**                                <=        Reference to an array of Perl strings (bytes)
 uchar*                                <=        Perl string (bytes)
 TQRgb*                                 <=        Reference to an array of Perl integers (IV)
 TQCOORD*                               <=        Reference to an array of Perl integers (IV)
 void*                                 <=>       Reference to a Perl integer (IV)
 TQValueList<int>, - *, - &             <=>       Reference to an array of Perl integers (IV)
 TQCanvasItemList, - *, - &              =>       Reference to an array of TQt::CanvasItem
 TQWidgetList, - *, - &                 <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::Widget
 TQObjectList, - *, - &                 <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::Object
 TQFileInfoList, - *, - &               <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::FileInfo
 TQPtrList<TQTab>, - *, - &              <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::Tab
 TQPtrList<TQToolBar>, - *, - &          <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::ToolBar
 TQPtrList<TQNetworkOperation>, - *, - & <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::NetworkOperation
 TQPtrList<TQDockWindow>, - *, - &       <=>       Reference to an array of TQt::DockWindow
 (TQUObject*)