QML Sequence Types

For every object type and value type a sequence type for storing multiple instances of the type is automatically made available. You can use the list keyword to create properties of sequence types:

import QtQml

QtObject {
    property list<int> ints: [1, 2, 3, 4]
    property list<Connection> connections: [
        Connection {
            // ...
        },
        Connection {
            // ...
        }
    ]
}

Sequences of value types are implemented as QList and sequences of object types are implemented as QQmlListProperty.

Sequences in QML generally behave like the JavaScript Array type, with some important differences which result from the use of a C++ storage type in the implementation:

1. Deleting an element from a sequence will result in a default-constructed value replacing that element, rather than an undefined value.
2. Setting the length property of a sequence to a value larger than its current value will result in the sequence being padded out to the specified length with default-constructed elements rather than undefined elements.
3. The Qt container classes support signed (rather than unsigned) integer indexes; thus, attempting to access any index greater than the maximum number qsizetype can hold will fail.

If you wish to remove elements from a sequence rather than simply replace them with default constructed values, do not use the indexed delete operator (delete sequence[i]) but instead use the splice function (sequence.splice(startIndex, deleteCount)).

In general any container recognizable by QMetaSequence can be passed from C++ to QML via Q_PROPERTY or Q_INVOKABLE methods. This includes, but is not limited to, all registered QList, QQueue, QStack, QSet, std::list, std::vector that contain a type marked with Q_DECLARE_METATYPE.

Using a sequence via QMetaSequence results in expensive data conversions. To avoid the conversions you can register your own anonymous sequence types using QML_SEQUENTIAL_CONTAINER from C++. Types registered this way behave like the pre-defined sequence types and are stored as-is. However, they have no QML names.

The QtQml module contains a few sequence types you may want to use.