Question

I have a string that I need at various points in my program. I know that Qt can manage image resources, but I need similar functionality for a couple of strings. Currently I’m using a string resource class, which is a sloppy solution.

class StringRes {
public:
    static const QString& appName() { return _appName; }
    static const QString& appVersion() { return _appVersion; }
private:
    static const QString _appName;
    static const QString _appVersion;
};

Besides, this solution causes a segfault at a certain point in my code.

_fileStream << QString("This is ")
               + StringRes::appName()
               + " "
               + StringRes::appVersion()
               + " reporting for duty.\n";

How do Qt programmers (or C++ programmers in general) manage their string resources?

Answer 1

For storing just application’s name and version and organization’s name and domain you can use QCoreApplications‘s properties applicationName, applicationVersion, organizationDomain and organizationName.

I usually set them in main() function:

#include <QApplication>
#include "MainWindow.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QApplication app(argc, argv);

    // These functions are member of QCoreApplication, QApplication's
    // parent class:
    app.setApplicationName("My Application");
    app.setApplicationVersion("3.5.2");
    app.setOrganizationName("My Company, or just My Name");
    app.setOrganizationDomain("http://example.com/");

    MainWindow window;
    window.show();

    return app.exec();
}

And I can use them to show a nice about message:

#include "MainWindow.h"
#include <QCoreApplication>

...

// Slot called when ? -> About menu is clicked.
void MainWindow::on_aboutAction_triggered()
{
    QString message = tr("<strong>%1</strong> %2<br />"
                         "Developed by %3")
            .arg(QCoreApplication::applicationName())
            .arg(QCoreApplication::applicationVersion())
            .arg(QString("<a href=\"%1\">%2</a>")
                .arg(QCoreApplication::organizationDomain())
                .arg(QCoreApplication::organizationName()))
            ;

    QMessageBox::about(this, tr("About"), message);
}