QSqlRelationalTableModel

QSqlRelationalTableModel acts like QSqlTableModel, but allows columns to be set as foreign keys into other database tables.

The screenshot on the left shows a plain QSqlTableModel in a QTableView. Foreign keys (city and country) aren't resolved to human-readable values. The screenshot on the right shows a QSqlRelationalTableModel, with foreign keys resolved into human-readable text strings.

The following code snippet shows how the QSqlRelationalTableModel was set up:

     model->setTable("employee");

     model->setRelation(2, QSqlRelation("city", "id", "name"));
     model->setRelation(3, QSqlRelation("country", "id", "name"));

The setRelation() function calls establish a relationship between two tables. The first call specifies that column 2 in table employee is a foreign key that maps with field id of table city, and that the view should present the city's name field to the user. The second call does something similar with column 3.

If you use a read-write QSqlRelationalTableModel, you probably want to use QSqlRelationalDelegate on the view. Unlike the default delegate, QSqlRelationalDelegate provides a combobox for fields that are foreign keys into other tables. To use the class, simply call QAbstractItemView::setItemDelegate() on the view with an instance of QSqlRelationalDelegate:

     QTableView *view = new QTableView;
     view->setModel(model);
     view->setItemDelegate(new QSqlRelationalDelegate(view));

The sql/relationaltablemodel example illustrates how to use QSqlRelationalTableModel in conjunction with QSqlRelationalDelegate to provide tables with foreigh key support.

Notes:

• The table must have a primary key declared.
• The table's primary key may not contain a relation to another table.
• If a relational table contains keys that refer to non-existent rows in the referenced table, the rows containing the invalid keys will not be exposed through the model. The user or the database is responsible for keeping referential integrity.
• If a relation's display column name is also used as a column name in the main table, or if it is used as display column name in more than one relation it will be aliased. The alias is is the relation's table name and display column name joined by an underscore (e.g. tablename_columnname). All occurrences of the duplicate display column name are aliased when duplication is detected, but no aliasing is done to the column names in the main table. The aliasing doesn't affect QSqlRelation, so QSqlRelation::displayColumn() will return the original display column name, but QSqlRecord::fieldName() will return aliases.
• When using setData() the role should always be Qt::EditRole, and when using data() the role should always be Qt::DisplayRole.