Qt5 new signal to lambda connections memory leak

Question

The new Qt5 signals and slots syntax allows us to connect signals not only to slots, but also to plain old functions and functors/lambdas. Now the problem is, that lambdas are essentialy objects with () operator, and when you connect signals to them, they get copied somewhere in qt internal classes. And, when you disconnect the signal from that functor, it stays in qt internals. I fail to understand, is that a normal behaviour? Or maybe there is a way to destroy those functional objects after disconnection?

Here's an example:

//example

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

    QTimer* timer = new QTimer();

    QSharedPointer<QMetaObject::Connection> connection(new QMetaObject::Connection());

    //functor is created and gets copied inside qt internals, connection variable is captured
    //inside the functor

    *connection.data() = QObject::connect(timer, &QTimer::timeout, [=]
    {
        qDebug() << "disconnected";
        QObject::disconnect(*connection.data());
    });

    timer->start(10000);

    return a.exec();
}

//example

Now when i look at strong reference count of connection variable after the slot disconnection, it stays 2, which means that the functor object itself is still alive and well, though it is of no use to me now. Do I miss something?

Answer 1

The example is over-engineered (why using a QSharedPointer? why capturing it by value?). But indeed Qt is leaking the functor object.

The point is that the internal connection list is simply marked as dirty, and not cleared until either the sender is deleted or a new signal is connected (see the usages of cleanConnectionLists).

I pushed a couple of patches that should fix this behaviour: https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,42976 and 42979