Qt - remove all widgets from layout?

This doesn't seem easy. Basically, I add QPushButtons through a function to a layout, and when the function executes, I want to clear the layout first (removing all QPushButtons and whatever else is in there), because more buttons just get appended to the scrollview.

header

QVBoxLayout* _layout;

cpp

void MainWindow::removeButtonsThenAddMore(const QString &item) {

//remove buttons/widgets

QVBoxLayout* _layout = new QVBoxLayout(this);

QPushButton button = new QPushButton(item);
_layout->addWidget(button);

QPushButton button = new QPushButton("button");
_layout->addWidget(button);

QWidget* widget = new QWidget();
widget->setLayout(_layout);

QScrollArea* scroll = new QScrollArea();
scroll->setWidget(widget);
scroll->show();

}

I had the same problem: I have a game app whose main window class inherits QMainWindow. Its constructor looks partly like this:

m_scene = new QGraphicsScene;
m_scene->setBackgroundBrush( Qt::black );
...
m_view = new QGraphicsView( m_scene );
...
setCentralWidget( m_view );

When I want to display a level of the game, I instantiate a QGridLayout, into which I add QLabels, and then set their pixmaps to certain pictures (pixmaps with transparent parts). The first level displays fine, but when switching to the second level, the pixmaps from the first level could still be seen behind the new ones (where the pixmap was transparent).

I tried several things to delete the old widgets. (a) I tried deleting the QGridLayout and instantiating a new one, but then learned that deleting a layout does not delete the widgets added to it. (b) I tried calling QLabel::clear() on the new pixmaps, but that of course had only an effect on the new ones, not the zombie ones. (c) I even tried deleting my m_view and m_scene, and reconstructing them every time I displayed a new level, but still no luck.

Then (d) I tried one of the solutions given above, namely

QLayoutItem *wItem;
while (wItem = widget->layout()->takeAt(0) != 0)
    delete wItem;

but that didn't work, either.

However, googling further, I found an answer that worked. What was missing from (d) was a call to delete item->widget(). The following now works for me:

// THIS IS THE SOLUTION!
// Delete all existing widgets, if any.
if ( m_view->layout() != NULL )
{
    QLayoutItem* item;
    while ( ( item = m_view->layout()->takeAt( 0 ) ) != NULL )
    {
        delete item->widget();
        delete item;
    }
    delete m_view->layout();
}

and then I instantiate a new QGridLayout as with the first level, add the new level's widgets to it, etc.

Qt is great in many ways, but I do think this problems shows that things could be a bit easier here.

Layout management page in Qt's help states:

The layout will automatically reparent the widgets (using QWidget::setParent()) so that they are children of the widget on which the layout is installed.

My conclusion: Widgets need to be destroyed manually or by destroying the parent WIDGET, not layout

Widgets in a layout are children of the widget on which the layout is installed, not of the layout itself. Widgets can only have other widgets as parent, not layouts.

My conclusion: Same as above

To @Muelner for "contradiction" "The ownership of item is transferred to the layout, and it's the layout's responsibility to delete it." - this doesn't mean WIDGET, but ITEM that is reparented to the layout and will be deleted later by the layout. Widgets are still children of the widget the layout is installed on, and they need to be removed either manually or by deleting the whole parent widget.

If one really needs to remove all widgets and items from a layout, leaving it completely empty, he needs to make a recursive function like this:

// shallowly tested, seems to work, but apply the logic

void clearLayout(QLayout* layout, bool deleteWidgets = true)
{
    while (QLayoutItem* item = layout->takeAt(0))
    {
        if (deleteWidgets)
        {
            if (QWidget* widget = item->widget())
                widget->deleteLater();
        }
        if (QLayout* childLayout = item->layout())
            clearLayout(childLayout, deleteWidgets);
        delete item;
    }
}

This code deletes all its children. So everything inside the layout 'disappears'.

qDeleteAll(yourWidget->findChildren<QWidget *>(QString(), Qt::FindDirectChildrenOnly));

This deletes all direct widgets of the widget yourWidget. Using Qt::FindDirectChildrenOnly is essential as it prevents the deletion of widgets that are children of widgets that are also in the list and probably already deleted by the loop inside qDeleteAll.

Here is the description of qDeleteAll:

void qDeleteAll(ForwardIterator begin, ForwardIterator end)

Deletes all the items in the range [begin, end] using the C++ delete > operator. The item type must be a pointer type (for example, QWidget *).

Note that qDeleteAll needs to be called with a container from that widget (not the layout). And note that qDeleteAll does NOT delete yourWidget - just its children.