signals-cpp

Provide a very simple header-only C++ interface for creating and managing signal-slot-connections in an easy and thread-safe manner.

misc

This library is header-only and uses some new C++11 features (such as std::mutex, std::atomic, lambda-expressions, and ...) to provide an easy-to-use interface and being thread-safe at the same time. There are several important advantages over the approach used by the Qt signal-and-slot implementation:

• no need for an additional build step (i.e., MOC compiler),
• no special macros and language extensions required (i.e., Q_EMIT, Q_SLOTS, Q_OBJECT, ...),
• not intrusive, since no inheritance from a certain base class is required (i.e., QObject),
• checking whether the signal interface matches that of the target slot happens during compile-time,
• no need for a meta-type system, and
• free-standing functions and lambda-expressions can also be used as a target slots.

sample usage

Expose a signal valueChanged with a single int parameter in a class A as a public member:

class A {
public:
    ...
	void setValue(int v);
    ...
public:
    sigs::signal<void(int)> valueChanged;
	...
};

The signal can be emitted or fired by calling its fire() method passing the actual int value as argument:

void A::setValue(int v) {
    ...
	valueChanged.fire(v);
}

To connect this signal to a method onValueChanged() of another class B add a connections object to class B (ideally as the last member):

class B {
public:
    B(A* a);
    ...
	void onValueChanged(int v);
    ...
private:
    ...
    sigs::connections m_conns; // should be the last member
};

To establish the actual connection (e.g., in the constructor of class B), call the connect() method of the m_conns member:

B::B(A* a) {
    ...
    m_conns.connect(a->valueChanged, this, &onValueChanged);
	...
}

You can also connect easily to a C++11 lambda expression like this:

B::B(A* a) {
    ...
    m_conns.connect(a->valueChanged, [](int v) {
	    std::cout << "signal 'valueChanged' triggered for: " << v << std::endl;
	});
	...
}

The connections get automatically disconnected on destruction of either object a or b, which ensures that no dangling connections exist.

external dependencies

• cute: only for unit tests
• cmake: build system; only for the unit tests