Threading in pyqt4

Question

In my GUI I have to download lots of stuff in between. I use urllib to do that. the problem of course then becomes that the GUI freezes up until everything gets downloaded.

My code is something like following

QtCore.QObject.connect( self.UI.commandLinkButton_2 , QtCore.SIGNAL("clicked()") , self.addStoryToHistory )

wherein the above function has the downloading code.

There is nothing like sending of shared data among this and the process just involves downloading of the data to a location.

What is the simplest way to not freeze up my GUI ? Should i use multiprocessing or QThreads?

Can anybody point me to some links.... I do not wish it to be very complex so if there is any easier way do it please point it out....

Thanks a lot...

Answer 1

Here's an example I've just stripped from a project I was working on a couple of months back using the http example from PyQt as a base. It'll download SIP from the Riverbank website.

It's using QHttp from QtNetwork instead of urllib and the progress bar is connected to its dataReadProgress signal. This should allow you to reliably download a file as well as having a responsive GUI.

from PyQt4.QtCore import QUrl, QFileInfo, QFile, QIODevice
from PyQt4.QtGui import QApplication, QDialog, QProgressBar, QLabel, QPushButton, QDialogButtonBox, \
                    QVBoxLayout, QMessageBox
from PyQt4.QtNetwork import QHttp

url_to_download = 'http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Downloads/sip4/sip-4.12.3.zip'

class Downloader(QDialog):
    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        super(Downloader, self).__init__(parent)

        self.httpGetId = 0
        self.httpRequestAborted = False
        self.statusLabel = QLabel('Downloading %s' % url_to_download)
        self.closeButton = QPushButton("Close")
        self.closeButton.setAutoDefault(False)
        self.progressBar = QProgressBar()

        buttonBox = QDialogButtonBox()
        buttonBox.addButton(self.closeButton, QDialogButtonBox.RejectRole)

        self.http = QHttp(self)
        self.http.requestFinished.connect(self.httpRequestFinished)
        self.http.dataReadProgress.connect(self.updateDataReadProgress)
        self.http.responseHeaderReceived.connect(self.readResponseHeader)
        self.closeButton.clicked.connect(self.cancelDownload)

        mainLayout = QVBoxLayout()
        mainLayout.addWidget(self.statusLabel)
        mainLayout.addWidget(self.progressBar)
        mainLayout.addWidget(buttonBox)
        self.setLayout(mainLayout)

        self.setWindowTitle('Download Example')
        self.downloadFile()

    def downloadFile(self):
        url = QUrl(url_to_download)
        fileInfo = QFileInfo(url.path())
        fileName = fileInfo.fileName()

        if QFile.exists(fileName):
            QFile.remove(fileName)

        self.outFile = QFile(fileName)
        if not self.outFile.open(QIODevice.WriteOnly):
            QMessageBox.information(self, 'Error',
                    'Unable to save the file %s: %s.' % (fileName, self.outFile.errorString()))
            self.outFile = None
            return

        mode = QHttp.ConnectionModeHttp
        port = url.port()
        if port == -1:
            port = 0
        self.http.setHost(url.host(), mode, port)
        self.httpRequestAborted = False

        path = QUrl.toPercentEncoding(url.path(), "!$&'()*+,;=:@/")
        if path:
            path = str(path)
        else:
            path = '/'

        # Download the file.
        self.httpGetId = self.http.get(path, self.outFile)

    def cancelDownload(self):
        self.statusLabel.setText("Download canceled.")
        self.httpRequestAborted = True
        self.http.abort()
        self.close()

    def httpRequestFinished(self, requestId, error):
        if requestId != self.httpGetId:
            return

        if self.httpRequestAborted:
            if self.outFile is not None:
                self.outFile.close()
                self.outFile.remove()
                self.outFile = None
            return

        self.outFile.close()

        if error:
            self.outFile.remove()
            QMessageBox.information(self, 'Error',
                    'Download failed: %s.' % self.http.errorString())

        self.statusLabel.setText('Done')       

    def readResponseHeader(self, responseHeader):
        # Check for genuine error conditions.
        if responseHeader.statusCode() not in (200, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307):
            QMessageBox.information(self, 'Error',
                    'Download failed: %s.' % responseHeader.reasonPhrase())
            self.httpRequestAborted = True
            self.http.abort()

    def updateDataReadProgress(self, bytesRead, totalBytes):
        if self.httpRequestAborted:
            return
        self.progressBar.setMaximum(totalBytes)
        self.progressBar.setValue(bytesRead)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    downloader = Downloader()
    downloader.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

Answer 2

I suggest you to use the QNetworkManager instead and monitor the download process.

See this other question: pyQT QNetworkManager and ProgressBars