Binding expression for nested properties not working

BePie

If there is an object like this:

//A.qml
import QtQuick 2.0
import QtQml 2.0

Rectangle {

    property QtObject props: QtObject {
        property color mainColor: "blue"
    }

    color: props.mainColor

}

And I use this object, properties of A instance's props properties (like prop.mainColor) can be read, imperative assigned to, assign to a binding. The problem is that binding expression does not work:

import QtQuick 2.9
import QtQml 2.0
import QtQuick.Window 2.2

Window {
    A {
        id: a
        anchors.fill: parent

        props.mainColor: "red" // <<< error

        Component.onCompleted: {
            a.props.mainColor = Qt.binding(function(){return "red"})  // <<< wo
            a.props.mainColor = "red"  // <<< works
            console.log(a.props.mainColor) // <<< works
        }
    }
    // Component.onCompleted works also in this scope
}

error (if property QtObject props: QtObject{...}):
Cannot assign to non-existent property "mainColor"

error (if property var props: Item{...}):
Invalid grouped property access

Can someone explain why one can read the property (and assign) but not bind-assign?

Timothy 0

I just ran into this issue myself, and I have a solution. I know this is an old topic, but since this was pretty much the only thing I could find on the internet about this problem, hopefully this can help someone else.

In order to bind to a property of the nested QtObject props from the of component A, props needs to be a type of component that is known within the scope where it's properties are being accessed.

To fix the code above, create a new file for the props Component:

//Props.qml
import QtQml 2.0

QtObject {
    property color mainColor
}

Now update the A component to use the Props component:

//A.qml
import QtQuick 2.0
import QtQml 2.0

Rectangle {

    property Props props: Props {
        mainColor: "blue"
    }

    color: props.mainColor

}

A few things to note here from my testing:
If you were to now add a new property to the instance of Props in A.qml above, and try to bind a value to that , it would fail, because in the outside scope, that new property is not a known property of the Props type.
Similarly, if you were to declare A.props as property QtObject props: Props { ... } then binding to mainColor would fail because mainColor is not a property of QtObject, and props is being exposed as a QtObject (the base class).

It appears that the property resolution for binding to a nested property is not able to infer additional properties added to an instance of an object, and can only be bound to known properties of the type being exposed.