Qt Reference Documentation

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# QLocalServer Class Reference

The QLocalServer class provides a local socket based server. More...

     #include <QLocalServer>

Inherits: QObject.

This class was introduced in Qt 4.4.

- List of all members, including inherited members

## Public Functions

| QLocalServer ( QObject * parent = 0 )
| ~QLocalServer ()
void | close ()
QString | errorString () const
QString | fullServerName () const
virtual bool | hasPendingConnections () const
bool | isListening () const
bool | listen ( const QString & name )
int | maxPendingConnections () const
virtual QLocalSocket * | nextPendingConnection ()
QAbstractSocket::SocketError | serverError () const
QString | serverName () const
void | setMaxPendingConnections ( int numConnections )
bool | waitForNewConnection ( int msec = 0, bool * timedOut = 0 )

- 29 public functions inherited from QObject

## Signals

void | newConnection ()

- 1 signal inherited from QObject

## Static Public Members

bool | removeServer ( const QString & name )

- 7 static public members inherited from QObject

## Protected Functions

virtual void | incomingConnection ( quintptr socketDescriptor )

- 8 protected functions inherited from QObject

### Additional Inherited Members

- 1 property inherited from QObject
- 1 public slot inherited from QObject

## Detailed Description

The QLocalServer class provides a local socket based server.

This class makes it possible to accept incoming local socket connections.

Call listen() to have the server start listening for incoming connections on a specified key. The newConnection() signal is then emitted each time a client connects to the server.

Call nextPendingConnection() to accept the pending connection as a connected QLocalSocket. The function returns a pointer to a QLocalSocket that can be used for communicating with the client.

If an error occurs, serverError() returns the type of error, and errorString() can be called to get a human readable description of what happened.

When listening for connections, the name which the server is listening on is available through serverName().

Calling close() makes QLocalServer stop listening for incoming connections.

Although QLocalServer is designed for use with an event loop, it's possible to use it without one. In that case, you must use waitForNewConnection(), which blocks until either a connection is available or a timeout expires.

See also QLocalSocket and QTcpServer.

## Member Function Documentation

### QLocalServer::QLocalServer ( QObject * parent = 0 )

Create a new local socket server with the given parent.

See also listen().

### QLocalServer::~QLocalServer ()

Destroys the QLocalServer object. If the server is listening for connections, it is automatically closed.

Any client QLocalSockets that are still connected must either disconnect or be reparented before the server is deleted.

See also close().

### void QLocalServer::close ()

Stop listening for incoming connections. Existing connections are not effected, but any new connections will be refused.

See also isListening() and listen().

### QString QLocalServer::errorString () const

Returns the human-readable message appropriate to the current error reported by serverError(). If no suitable string is available, an empty string is returned.

See also serverError().

### QString QLocalServer::fullServerName () const

Returns the full path that the server is listening on.

Note: This is platform specific

See also listen() and serverName().

### bool QLocalServer::hasPendingConnections () const`[virtual]`

Returns true if the server has a pending connection; otherwise returns false.

See also nextPendingConnection() and setMaxPendingConnections().

### void QLocalServer::incomingConnection ( quintptr socketDescriptor )`[virtual protected]`

This virtual function is called by QLocalServer when a new connection is available. socketDescriptor is the native socket descriptor for the accepted connection.

The base implementation creates a QLocalSocket, sets the socket descriptor and then stores the QLocalSocket in an internal list of pending connections. Finally newConnection() is emitted.

Reimplement this function to alter the server's behavior when a connection is available.

See also newConnection(), nextPendingConnection(), and QLocalSocket::setSocketDescriptor().

### bool QLocalServer::isListening () const

Returns true if the server is listening for incoming connections otherwise false.

See also listen() and close().

### bool QLocalServer::listen ( const QString & name )

Tells the server to listen for incoming connections on name. If the server is currently listening then it will return false. Return true on success otherwise false.

name can be a single name and QLocalServer will determine the correct platform specific path. serverName() will return the name that is passed into listen.

Usually you would just pass in a name like "foo", but on Unix this could also be a path such as "/tmp/foo" and on Windows this could be a pipe path such as "\\.\pipe\foo"

Note: On Unix if the server crashes without closing listen will fail with AddressInUseError. To create a new server the file should be removed. On Windows two local servers can listen to the same pipe at the same time, but any connections will go to one of the server.

See also serverName(), isListening(), and close().

### int QLocalServer::maxPendingConnections () const

Returns the maximum number of pending accepted connections. The default is 30.

See also setMaxPendingConnections() and hasPendingConnections().

### void QLocalServer::newConnection ()`[signal]`

This signal is emitted every time a new connection is available.

See also hasPendingConnections() and nextPendingConnection().

### QLocalSocket * QLocalServer::nextPendingConnection ()`[virtual]`

Returns the next pending connection as a connected QLocalSocket object.

The socket is created as a child of the server, which means that it is automatically deleted when the QLocalServer object is destroyed. It is still a good idea to delete the object explicitly when you are done with it, to avoid wasting memory.

0 is returned if this function is called when there are no pending connections.

See also hasPendingConnections(), newConnection(), and incomingConnection().

### bool QLocalServer::removeServer ( const QString & name )`[static]`

Removes any server instance that might cause a call to listen() to fail and returns true if successful; otherwise returns false. This function is meant to recover from a crash, when the previous server instance has not been cleaned up.

On Windows, this function does nothing; on Unix, it removes the socket file given by name.

Warning: Be careful to avoid removing sockets of running instances.

This function was introduced in Qt 4.5.

### QAbstractSocket::SocketError QLocalServer::serverError () const

Returns the type of error that occurred last or NoError.

See also errorString().

### QString QLocalServer::serverName () const

Returns the server name if the server is listening for connections; otherwise returns QString()

See also listen() and fullServerName().

### void QLocalServer::setMaxPendingConnections ( int numConnections )

Sets the maximum number of pending accepted connections to numConnections. QLocalServer will accept no more than numConnections incoming connections before nextPendingConnection() is called.

Note: Even though QLocalServer will stop accepting new connections after it has reached its maximum number of pending connections, the operating system may still keep them in queue which will result in clients signaling that it is connected.

See also maxPendingConnections() and hasPendingConnections().

### bool QLocalServer::waitForNewConnection ( int msec = 0, bool * timedOut = 0 )

Waits for at most msec milliseconds or until an incoming connection is available. Returns true if a connection is available; otherwise returns false. If the operation timed out and timedOut is not 0, *timedOut will be set to true.

This is a blocking function call. Its use is ill-advised in a single-threaded GUI application, since the whole application will stop responding until the function returns. waitForNewConnection() is mostly useful when there is no event loop available.

The non-blocking alternative is to connect to the newConnection() signal.

If msec is -1, this function will not time out.

See also hasPendingConnections() and nextPendingConnection().