You are correct that value1 & 2 pointers never change. In the actual use case there will be other unexposed backend methods that update Value's rawValue which is then scaled to real units for the QML layer to read. All of Value's exposed methods and properties will be only be read by the QML layer. There will be exposed backend methods that are written to by the QML layer and other values that will be exposed in a model, but this is straight forward as there's plenty of information out there on doing that.

Can you please confirm your recommended changes to the code I previously posted. My understanding of the changes is below but that throws a "cannot convert 'QVariant' to 'Value*' in assignment." during the build.

class BackEnd : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT
    Q_PROPERTY(Value* value1 READ getValue1 CONSTANT)
    Q_PROPERTY(Value* value2 READ getValue2 CONSTANT)
public:
    explicit BackEnd(QObject *parent = nullptr);

   QVariant getValue1(){return QVariant::fromValue(value1);}
   QVariant getValue2(){return QVariant::fromValue(value2);}

When I change the Q_PROPERTY lines to below everything works

 Q_PROPERTY(QVariant value1 READ getValue1 CONSTANT)

Thanks again for your assistance!

Semantically, Value1 and Value2 are properties of your Backend.
Invokable function are for functions, stuff that mutates your state or compute something, that's not the case here.

If the Value1 and Value2 pointers never change, expose them as Q_PROPERTY in Backend.h:

Q_PROPERTY(Value* value1 READ getValue1 CONSTANT)
If for some reason you don't want to register the Value type, you don't have to use QVariant, you can expose it as a Q_PROPERTY(QObject*, ...

Keep your getters as is and just delete the Q_INVOKABLE part.

QML code would then be:

Text {text: qsTr("Value 1: " + backend.value1.value + " " + backend.value1.units)}
Text {y: 20;text: qsTr("Value 2: " + backend.value2.value + " " + backend.value2.units)}

Which can be rewritten with a Column and a repeater:

Column {
    Repeater {
        model: [backend.value1, backend.value2]
        delegate: Text {
            text: qsTr("Value %1: %2 %3 ").arg(index).arg(modelData.value).arg(modelData.units)
            padding: 8
    }
}

And then depending on the actual usecase you might consider exposing your values in a model instead of named properties for each Value1, Value2

With the addition of Q_INVOKABLE as suggested by @J-Hilk and the removal of the Value(QObject *parent) constructor, it all works.

Final code for prosperity below:
backend.h

#ifndef BACKEND_H
#define BACKEND_H

#include <QObject>
#include <QString>
#include <QVariant>


class Value : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT
    Q_PROPERTY(qreal value READ getValue NOTIFY valueChanged)
    Q_PROPERTY(QString units READ getUnits CONSTANT)

public:
    Value(QString _units, qreal _scale);
    ~Value();

    qreal getValue() const;
    QString getUnits() const;
    void newRawValue(qreal _rawValue);

signals:
    void valueChanged();

private:
    const QString units;
    qreal rawValue = 1;
    const qreal scale;
};

class BackEnd : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT

public:
    explicit BackEnd(QObject *parent = nullptr);

    Q_INVOKABLE QVariant getValue1(){return QVariant::fromValue(value1);}
    Q_INVOKABLE QVariant getValue2(){return QVariant::fromValue(value2);}

private:
    Value *value1 = new Value("km",3);
    Value *value2 = new Value("hr",4);
};

#endif // BACKEND_H

backend.cpp

#include "backend.h"

Value::Value(QString _units, qreal _scale): units(_units), scale(_scale){}

Value::~Value(){}

qreal Value :: getValue() const {return rawValue*scale;}

QString Value :: getUnits()const {return units;}

void Value :: newRawValue(qreal _rawValue){
    if(rawValue == _rawValue)
        return;

    rawValue = _rawValue;
    emit valueChanged();
}

BackEnd :: BackEnd(QObject *parent) : QObject(parent){
}

main.cpp

#include <QGuiApplication>
#include <QQmlApplicationEngine>

#include "backend.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);

    qmlRegisterType<BackEnd>("backend", 1, 0, "BackEnd");

    QQmlApplicationEngine engine;
    engine.load(QUrl(QStringLiteral("qrc:/main.qml")));

    return app.exec();
}

main.qml

import QtQuick 2.12
import QtQuick.Window 2.12

import backend 1.0

Window {
    visible: true
    width: 640
    height: 480

    BackEnd {id: backend}

    Text {text: qsTr("Value 1: " + backend.getValue1().value + " " + backend.getValue1().units)}
    Text {y: 20;text: qsTr("Value 2: " + backend.getValue2().value + " " + backend.getValue2().units)}
}

@_-Peter-_ said in Accessing members of a class defined within another class:

Q_PROPERTY(qreal Value1.Value READ Value1.getValue NOTIFY Value1.valueChanged)

In QML, not solely of custom, . is a token separator, and a token starting with an upper-case letter is a type.

https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtqml-documents-definetypes.html#naming-custom-qml-object-types:

It must begin with an uppercase letter.

Ignoring this leads to headaches. If the goal is working code rather than exploring the limits of the framework, do not use . or strings starting with upper case letters in property names.

@_-Peter-_ said in Accessing members of a class defined within another class:

backend.h

[...]

backend.ccp

[...]

Only tangentially connected, but defining separate .h, .cpp, and main.cpp files for an example makes the code harder to follow for a forum post. My not at all humble opinion is that everything should be inlined to focus on compilation units rather than files.

Now I get a "static assertion failed" during compile and directed to use the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE macro.

Will read the docs for the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE macro.

"incomplete type 'QVariant'

you should know this!

#include <QVariant>

I tried to a few different variations but got the same error.

class BackEnd : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT
    Q_PROPERTY(qreal Value1.Value READ Value1.getValue NOTIFY Value1.valueChanged)
    Q_PROPERTY(QString Value1.Units READ Value1.getUnits CONSTANT)
    Q_PROPERTY(qreal Value2.Value READ Value2.getValue NOTIFY Value2.valueChanged)
    Q_PROPERTY(QString Value2.Units READ Value2.getUnits CONSTANT)

public:
    explicit BackEnd(QObject *parent = nullptr);

    Value Value1;// = Value("km",3);
    Value Value2;// = Value("hr",4);
};

class BackEnd : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT

public:
    explicit BackEnd(QObject *parent = nullptr);

    Q_INVOKABLE QVariant getValue1(){return QVariant::fromValue(Value1);}
    Value Value1();// = Value("km",3);
    Value Value2;// = Value("hr",4);
};

public:
    explicit BackEnd(QObject *parent = nullptr);

    QINVOKABLE QVariant getValue1() {return QVariant::fromValue(Value1);} 
    Value Value1;// = Value("km",3);
    Value Value2;// = Value("hr",4)

Text {text: qsTr("Value 1:" + backend.getValue1().Value + " " + backend.getValue1().Units)}