D-Bus Tutorial http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-tutorial.

html

D-Bus Tutorial
Havoc Pennington

Red Hat, Inc.

<[email protected]>

David Wheeler

John Palmieri

Red Hat, Inc.

<[email protected]>

Colin Walters

Red Hat, Inc.

<[email protected]>

Version 0.5.0

Table of Contents

Tutorial Work In Progress

What is D-Bus?
D-Bus applications
Concepts
Native Objects and Object Paths
Methods and Signals
Interfaces
Proxies
Bus Names
Addresses
Big Conceptual Picture
Messages - Behind the Scenes
Calling a Method - Behind the Scenes
Emitting a Signal - Behind the Scenes
Introspection
GLib API: Using Remote Objects
D-Bus - GLib type mappings
A sample program
Program initalization
Understanding method invocation
Connecting to object signals
Error handling and remote exceptions
More examples of method invocation

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Generated Bindings
GLib API: Implementing Objects
Server-side Annotations
Python API
Qt API: Using Remote Objects
Qt API: Implementing Objects

Tutorial Work In Progress

This tutorial is not complete; it probably contains some useful information, but also has
plenty of gaps. Right now, you'll also need to refer to the D-Bus specification, Doxygen
reference documentation, and look at some examples of how other apps use D-Bus.

Enhancing the tutorial is definitely encouraged - send your patches or suggestions to the
mailing list. If you create a D-Bus binding, please add a section to the tutorial for your
binding, if only a short section with a couple of examples.

What is D-Bus?
D-Bus is a system for interprocess communication (IPC). Architecturally, it has several
layers:

A library, libdbus, that allows two applications to connect to each other and exchange
messages.

A message bus daemon executable, built on libdbus, that multiple applications can
connect to. The daemon can route messages from one application to zero or more other
applications.

Wrapper libraries or bindings based on particular application frameworks. For

example, libdbus-glib and libdbus-qt. There are also bindings to languages such as
Python. These wrapper libraries are the API most people should use, as they simplify
the details of D-Bus programming. libdbus is intended to be a low-level backend for the
higher level bindings. Much of the libdbus API is only useful for binding
implementation.

libdbus only supports one-to-one connections, just like a raw network socket. However,
rather than sending byte streams over the connection, you send messages. Messages have a
header identifying the kind of message, and a body containing a data payload. libdbus also
abstracts the exact transport used (sockets vs. whatever else), and handles details such as
authentication.

The message bus daemon forms the hub of a wheel. Each spoke of the wheel is a one-to-one
connection to an application using libdbus. An application sends a message to the bus
daemon over its spoke, and the bus daemon forwards the message to other connected
applications as appropriate. Think of the daemon as a router.

The bus daemon has multiple instances on a typical computer. The first instance is a
machine-global singleton, that is, a system daemon similar to sendmail or Apache. This
instance has heavy security restrictions on what messages it will accept, and is used for
systemwide communication. The other instances are created one per user login session.

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These instances allow applications in the user's session to communicate with one another.

The systemwide and per-user daemons are separate. Normal within-session IPC does not
involve the systemwide message bus process and vice versa.

D-Bus applications

There are many, many technologies in the world that have "Inter-process communication"
or "networking" in their stated purpose: CORBA, DCE, DCOM, DCOP, XML-RPC, SOAP,
MBUS, Internet Communications Engine (ICE), and probably hundreds more. Each of these
is tailored for particular kinds of application. D-Bus is designed for two specific cases:

Communication between desktop applications in the same desktop session; to allow

integration of the desktop session as a whole, and address issues of process lifecycle
(when do desktop components start and stop running).

Communication between the desktop session and the operating system, where the
operating system would typically include the kernel and any system daemons or
processes.

For the within-desktop-session use case, the GNOME and KDE desktops have significant
previous experience with different IPC solutions such as CORBA and DCOP. D-Bus is built
on that experience and carefully tailored to meet the needs of these desktop projects in
particular. D-Bus may or may not be appropriate for other applications; the FAQ has some
comparisons to other IPC systems.

The problem solved by the systemwide or communication-with-the-OS case is explained well

by the following text from the Linux Hotplug project:

A gap in current Linux support is that policies with any sort of dynamic "interact
with user" component aren't currently supported. For example, that's often
needed the first time a network adapter or printer is connected, and to determine
appropriate places to mount disk drives. It would seem that such actions could be
supported for any case where a responsible human can be identified: single user
workstations, or any system which is remotely administered.

This is a classic "remote sysadmin" problem, where in this case hotplugging needs
to deliver an event from one security domain (operating system kernel, in this
case) to another (desktop for logged-in user, or remote sysadmin). Any effective
response must go the other way: the remote domain taking some action that lets
the kernel expose the desired device capabilities. (The action can often be taken
asynchronously, for example letting new hardware be idle until a meeting
finishes.) At this writing, Linux doesn't have widely adopted solutions to such
problems. However, the new D-Bus work may begin to solve that problem.

D-Bus may happen to be useful for purposes other than the one it was designed for. Its
general properties that distinguish it from other forms of IPC are:

Binary protocol designed to be used asynchronously (similar in spirit to the X Window

System protocol).

Stateful, reliable connections held open over time.

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The message bus is a daemon, not a "swarm" or distributed architecture.

Many implementation and deployment issues are specified rather than left
ambiguous/configurable/pluggable.

Semantics are similar to the existing DCOP system, allowing KDE to adopt it more
easily.

Security features to support the systemwide mode of the message bus.

Concepts
Some basic concepts apply no matter what application framework you're using to write a
D-Bus application. The exact code you write will be different for GLib vs. Qt vs. Python
applications, however.

Here is a diagram (png svg) that may help you visualize the concepts that follow.

Native Objects and Object Paths

Your programming framework probably defines what an "object" is like; usually with a base
class. For example: java.lang.Object, GObject, QObject, python's base Object, or whatever.
Let's call this a native object.

The low-level D-Bus protocol, and corresponding libdbus API, does not care about native
objects. However, it provides a concept called an object path. The idea of an object path is
that higher-level bindings can name native object instances, and allow remote applications
to refer to them.

The object path looks like a filesystem path, for example an object could be named /org/kde
/kspread/sheets/3/cells/4/5. Human-readable paths are nice, but you are free to create an object
named /com/mycompany/c5yo817y0c1y1c5b if it makes sense for your application.

Namespacing object paths is smart, by starting them with the components of a domain
name you own (e.g. /org/kde). This keeps different code modules in the same process from
stepping on one another's toes.

Methods and Signals

Each object has members; the two kinds of member are methods and signals. Methods are
operations that can be invoked on an object, with optional input (aka arguments or "in
parameters") and output (aka return values or "out parameters"). Signals are broadcasts
from the object to any interested observers of the object; signals may contain a data
payload.

Both methods and signals are referred to by name, such as "Frobate" or "OnClicked".

Interfaces

Each object supports one or more interfaces. Think of an interface as a named group of
methods and signals, just as it is in GLib or Qt or Java. Interfaces define the type of an
object instance.

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DBus identifies interfaces with a simple namespaced string, something like

org.freedesktop.Introspectable. Most bindings will map these interface names directly to the
appropriate programming language construct, for example to Java interfaces or C++ pure
virtual classes.

Proxies

A proxy object is a convenient native object created to represent a remote object in another
process. The low-level DBus API involves manually creating a method call message, sending
it, then manually receiving and processing the method reply message. Higher-level
bindings provide proxies as an alternative. Proxies look like a normal native object; but
when you invoke a method on the proxy object, the binding converts it into a DBus method
call message, waits for the reply message, unpacks the return value, and returns it from the
native method..

In pseudocode, programming without proxies might look like this:

Message message = new Message("/remote/object/path", "MethodName", arg1, arg2);

Connection connection = getBusConnection();
connection.send(message);
Message reply = connection.waitForReply(message);
if (reply.isError()) {

} else {
Object returnValue = reply.getReturnValue();
}

Programming with proxies might look like this:

Proxy proxy = new Proxy(getBusConnection(), "/remote/object/path");
Object returnValue = proxy.MethodName(arg1, arg2);

Bus Names

When each application connects to the bus daemon, the daemon immediately assigns it a
name, called the unique connection name. A unique name begins with a ':' (colon)
character. These names are never reused during the lifetime of the bus daemon - that is,
you know a given name will always refer to the same application. An example of a unique
name might be :34-907. The numbers after the colon have no meaning other than their
uniqueness.

When a name is mapped to a particular application's connection, that application is said to

own that name.

Applications may ask to own additional well-known names. For example, you could write a
specification to define a name called com.mycompany.TextEditor. Your definition could specify that
to own this name, an application should have an object at the path /com/mycompany/TextFileManager
supporting the interface org.freedesktop.FileHandler.

Applications could then send messages to this bus name, object, and interface to execute
method calls.

You could think of the unique names as IP addresses, and the well-known names as domain

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names. So com.mycompany.TextEditor might map to something like :34-907 just as mycompany.com maps to
something like 192.168.0.5.

Names have a second important use, other than routing messages. They are used to track
lifecycle. When an application exits (or crashes), its connection to the message bus will be
closed by the operating system kernel. The message bus then sends out notification
messages telling remaining applications that the application's names have lost their owner.
By tracking these notifications, your application can reliably monitor the lifetime of other
applications.

Bus names can also be used to coordinate single-instance applications. If you want to be
sure only one com.mycompany.TextEditor application is running for example, have the text editor
application exit if the bus name already has an owner.

Addresses

Applications using D-Bus are either servers or clients. A server listens for incoming
connections; a client connects to a server. Once the connection is established, it is a
symmetric flow of messages; the client-server distinction only matters when setting up the
connection.

If you're using the bus daemon, as you probably are, your application will be a client of the
bus daemon. That is, the bus daemon listens for connections and your application initiates a
connection to the bus daemon.

A D-Bus address specifies where a server will listen, and where a client will connect. For
example, the address unix:path=/tmp/abcdef specifies that the server will listen on a UNIX
domain socket at the path /tmp/abcdef and the client will connect to that socket. An address
can also specify TCP/IP sockets, or any other transport defined in future iterations of the
D-Bus specification.

When using D-Bus with a message bus daemon, libdbus automatically discovers the address
of the per-session bus daemon by reading an environment variable. It discovers the
systemwide bus daemon by checking a well-known UNIX domain socket path (though you
can override this address with an environment variable).

If you're using D-Bus without a bus daemon, it's up to you to define which application will
be the server and which will be the client, and specify a mechanism for them to agree on
the server's address. This is an unusual case.

Big Conceptual Picture

Pulling all these concepts together, to specify a particular method call on a particular
object instance, a number of nested components have to be named:

Address -> [Bus Name] -> Path -> Interface -> Method

The bus name is in brackets to indicate that it's optional -- you only provide a name to route
the method call to the right application when using the bus daemon. If you have a direct
connection to another application, bus names aren't used; there's no bus daemon.

The interface is also optional, primarily for historical reasons; DCOP does not require

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specifying the interface, instead simply forbidding duplicate method names on the same
object instance. D-Bus will thus let you omit the interface, but if your method name is
ambiguous it is undefined which method will be invoked.

Messages - Behind the Scenes

D-Bus works by sending messages between processes. If you're using a sufficiently

high-level binding, you may never work with messages directly.

There are 4 message types:

Method call messages ask to invoke a method on an object.

Method return messages return the results of invoking a method.

Error messages return an exception caused by invoking a method.

Signal messages are notifications that a given signal has been emitted (that an event
has occurred). You could also think of these as "event" messages.

A method call maps very simply to messages: you send a method call message, and receive
either a method return message or an error message in reply.

Each message has a header, including fields, and a body, including arguments. You can
think of the header as the routing information for the message, and the body as the payload.
Header fields might include the sender bus name, destination bus name, method or signal
name, and so forth. One of the header fields is a type signature describing the values found
in the body. For example, the letter "i" means "32-bit integer" so the signature "ii" means
the payload has two 32-bit integers.

Calling a Method - Behind the Scenes

A method call in DBus consists of two messages; a method call message sent from process A
to process B, and a matching method reply message sent from process B to process A. Both
the call and the reply messages are routed through the bus daemon. The caller includes a
different serial number in each call message, and the reply message includes this number to
allow the caller to match replies to calls.

The call message will contain any arguments to the method. The reply message may
indicate an error, or may contain data returned by the method.

A method invocation in DBus happens as follows:

The language binding may provide a proxy, such that invoking a method on an
in-process object invokes a method on a remote object in another process. If so, the
application calls a method on the proxy, and the proxy constructs a method call
message to send to the remote process.

For more low-level APIs, the application may construct a method call message itself,
without using a proxy.

In either case, the method call message contains: a bus name belonging to the remote
process; the name of the method; the arguments to the method; an object path inside

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the remote process; and optionally the name of the interface that specifies the method.

The method call message is sent to the bus daemon.

The bus daemon looks at the destination bus name. If a process owns that name, the
bus daemon forwards the method call to that process. Otherwise, the bus daemon
creates an error message and sends it back as the reply to the method call message.

The receiving process unpacks the method call message. In a simple low-level API
situation, it may immediately run the method and send a method reply message to the
bus daemon. When using a high-level binding API, the binding might examine the
object path, interface, and method name, and convert the method call message into an
invocation of a method on a native object (GObject, java.lang.Object, QObject, etc.),
then convert the return value from the native method into a method reply message.

The bus daemon receives the method reply message and sends it to the process that
made the method call.

The process that made the method call looks at the method reply and makes use of any
return values included in the reply. The reply may also indicate that an error
occurred. When using a binding, the method reply message may be converted into the
return value of of a proxy method, or into an exception.

The bus daemon never reorders messages. That is, if you send two method call messages to
the same recipient, they will be received in the order they were sent. The recipient is not
required to reply to the calls in order, however; for example, it may process each method
call in a separate thread, and return reply messages in an undefined order depending on
when the threads complete. Method calls have a unique serial number used by the method
caller to match reply messages to call messages.

Emitting a Signal - Behind the Scenes

A signal in DBus consists of a single message, sent by one process to any number of other
processes. That is, a signal is a unidirectional broadcast. The signal may contain arguments
(a data payload), but because it is a broadcast, it never has a "return value." Contrast this
with a method call (see the section called “Calling a Method - Behind the Scenes”) where
the method call message has a matching method reply message.

The emitter (aka sender) of a signal has no knowledge of the signal recipients. Recipients
register with the bus daemon to receive signals based on "match rules" - these rules would
typically include the sender and the signal name. The bus daemon sends each signal only to
recipients who have expressed interest in that signal.

A signal in DBus happens as follows:

A signal message is created and sent to the bus daemon. When using the low-level API
this may be done manually, with certain bindings it may be done for you by the
binding when a native object emits a native signal or event.

The signal message contains the name of the interface that specifies the signal; the
name of the signal; the bus name of the process sending the signal; and any arguments

Any process on the message bus can register "match rules" indicating which signals it

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is interested in. The bus has a list of registered match rules.

The bus daemon examines the signal and determines which processes are interested in
it. It sends the signal message to these processes.

Each process receiving the signal decides what to do with it; if using a binding, the
binding may choose to emit a native signal on a proxy object. If using the low-level API,
the process may just look at the signal sender and name and decide what to do based
on that.

Introspection

D-Bus objects may support the interface org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable. This interface has one
method Introspect which takes no arguments and returns an XML string. The XML string
describes the interfaces, methods, and signals of the object. See the D-Bus specification for
more details on this introspection format.

GLib API: Using Remote Objects

The GLib binding is defined in the header file <dbus/dbus-glib.h>.

D-Bus - GLib type mappings

The heart of the GLib bindings for D-Bus is the mapping it provides between D-Bus "type
signatures" and GLib types ( GType). The D-Bus type system is composed of a number of
"basic" types, along with several "container" types.

Basic type mappings

Below is a list of the basic types, along with their associated mapping to a GType.

D-Bus Free
GType Notes
basic type function
BYTE G_TYPE_UCHAR

BOOLEAN G_TYPE_BOOLEAN

INT16 G_TYPE_INT Will be changed to a G_TYPE_INT16 once GLib has it

UINT16 G_TYPE_UINT Will be changed to a G_TYPE_UINT16 once GLib has it
INT32 G_TYPE_INT Will be changed to a G_TYPE_INT32 once GLib has it
UINT32 G_TYPE_UINT Will be changed to a G_TYPE_UINT32 once GLib has it
INT64 G_TYPE_GINT64

UINT64 G_TYPE_GUINT64

DOUBLE G_TYPE_DOUBLE

STRING G_TYPE_STRING g_free

The returned proxy does not have an interface

OBJECT_PATH DBUS_TYPE_G_PROXY g_object_unref
set; use dbus_g_proxy_set_interface to invoke methods

As you can see, the basic mapping is fairly straightforward.

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Container type mappings

The D-Bus type system also has a number of "container" types, such as DBUS_TYPE_ARRAY and
DBUS_TYPE_STRUCT. The D-Bus type system is fully recursive, so one can for example have an
array of array of strings (i.e. type signature aas).

However, not all of these types are in common use; for example, at the time of this writing
the author knows of no one using DBUS_TYPE_STRUCT, or a DBUS_TYPE_ARRAY containing any non-basic
type. The approach the GLib bindings take is pragmatic; try to map the most common types
in the most obvious way, and let using less common and more complex types be less
"natural".

First, D-Bus type signatures which have an "obvious" corresponding built-in GLib type are
mapped using that type:

D-Bus type C Free

Description GType Notes
signature typedef function
Array of
as G_TYPE_STRV char ** g_strfreev
strings
The calling conventions for
Generic value values expect that method
v G_TYPE_VALUE GValue * g_value_unset
container callers have allocated return
values; see below.

The next most common recursive type signatures are arrays of basic values. The most
obvious mapping for arrays of basic types is a GArray. Now, GLib does not provide a builtin
GType for GArray. However, we actually need more than that - we need a "parameterized" type
which includes the contained type. Why we need this we will see below.

The approach taken is to create these types in the D-Bus GLib bindings; however, there is
nothing D-Bus specific about them. In the future, we hope to include such "fundamental"
types in GLib itself.

D-Bus type C Free

Description GType Notes
signature typedef function
ay Array of bytes DBUS_TYPE_G_BYTE_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
au Array of uint DBUS_TYPE_G_UINT_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
ai Array of int DBUS_TYPE_G_INT_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
ax Array of int64 DBUS_TYPE_G_INT64_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
at Array of uint64 DBUS_TYPE_G_UINT64_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
ad Array of double DBUS_TYPE_G_DOUBLE_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
Array of
ab DBUS_TYPE_G_BOOLEAN_ARRAY GArray * g_array_free
boolean

D-Bus also includes a special type DBUS_TYPE_DICT_ENTRY which is only valid in arrays.
It's intended to be mapped to a "dictionary" type by bindings. The obvious GLib mapping
here is GHashTable. Again, however, there is no builtin GType for a GHashTable. Moreover,
just like for arrays, we need a parameterized type so that the bindings can communiate

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which types are contained in the hash table.

At present, only strings are supported. Work is in progress to include more types.

D-Bus
C
type Description GType Free function Notes
typedef
signature
Dictionary
mapping GHashTable
a{ss} DBUS_TYPE_G_STRING_STRING_HASHTABLE
* g_hash_table_destroy
strings to
strings

Arbitrarily recursive type mappings

Finally, it is possible users will want to write or invoke D-Bus methods which have
arbitrarily complex type signatures not directly supported by these bindings. For this case,
we have a DBusGValue which acts as a kind of special variant value which may be iterated over
manually. The GType associated is DBUS_TYPE_G_VALUE.

TODO insert usage of DBUS_TYPE_G_VALUE here.

A sample program

Here is a D-Bus program using the GLib bindings.

int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
DBusGConnection *connection;
GError *error;
DBusGProxy *proxy;
char **name_list;
char **name_list_ptr;

g_type_init ();

error = NULL;
connection = dbus_g_bus_get (DBUS_BUS_SESSION,
&error);
if (connection == NULL)
{
g_printerr ("Failed to open connection to bus: %s\n",
error->message);
g_error_free (error);
exit (1);
}

/* Create a proxy object for the "bus driver" (name "org.freedesktop.DBus") */

proxy = dbus_g_proxy_new_for_name (connection,

DBUS_SERVICE_DBUS,
DBUS_PATH_DBUS,
DBUS_INTERFACE_DBUS);

/* Call ListNames method, wait for reply */

error = NULL;

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if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "ListNames", &error, G_TYPE_INVALID,

G_TYPE_STRV, &name_list, G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Just do demonstrate remote exceptions versus regular GError */
if (error->domain == DBUS_GERROR && error->code == DBUS_GERROR_REMOTE_EXCEPTION)
g_printerr ("Caught remote method exception %s: %s",
dbus_g_error_get_name (error),
error->message);
else
g_printerr ("Error: %s\n", error->message);
g_error_free (error);
exit (1);
}

/* Print the results */

g_print ("Names on the message bus:\n");

for (name_list_ptr = name_list; *name_list_ptr; name_list_ptr++)

{
g_print (" %s\n", *name_list_ptr);
}
g_strfreev (name_list);

g_object_unref (proxy);

return 0;
}

Program initalization

A connection to the bus is acquired using dbus_g_bus_get. Next, a proxy is created for the
object "/org/freedesktop/DBus" with interface org.freedesktop.DBus on the service
org.freedesktop.DBus. This is a proxy for the message bus itself.

Understanding method invocation

You have a number of choices for method invocation. First, as used above, dbus_g_proxy_call
sends a method call to the remote object, and blocks until a reply is recieved. The outgoing
arguments are specified in the varargs array, terminated with G_TYPE_INVALID. Next, pointers to
return values are specified, followed again by G_TYPE_INVALID.

To invoke a method asynchronously, use dbus_g_proxy_begin_call. This returns a DBusGPendingCall

object; you may then set a notification function using dbus_g_pending_call_set_notify.

Connecting to object signals

You may connect to signals using dbus_g_proxy_add_signal and dbus_g_proxy_connect_signal. You must
invoke dbus_g_proxy_add_signal to specify the signature of your signal handlers; you may then
invoke dbus_g_proxy_connect_signal multiple times.

Note that it will often be the case that there is no builtin marshaller for the type signature
of a remote signal. In that case, you must generate a marshaller yourself by using
glib-genmarshal, and then register it using dbus_g_object_register_marshaller.

Error handling and remote exceptions

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All of the GLib binding methods such as dbus_g_proxy_end_call return a GError. This GError can
represent two different things:

An internal D-Bus error, such as an out-of-memory condition, an I/O error, or a network

timeout. Errors generated by the D-Bus library itself have the domain DBUS_GERROR, and a
corresponding code such as DBUS_GERROR_NO_MEMORY. It will not be typical for applications to
handle these errors specifically.

A remote D-Bus exception, thrown by the peer, bus, or service. D-Bus remote
exceptions have both a textual "name" and a "message". The GLib bindings store this
information in the GError, but some special rules apply.

The set error will have the domain DBUS_GERROR as above, and will also have the code
DBUS_GERROR_REMOTE_EXCEPTION. In order to access the remote exception name, you must use a
special accessor, such as dbus_g_error_has_name or dbus_g_error_get_name. The remote exception
detailed message is accessible via the regular GError message member.

More examples of method invocation

Sending an integer and string, receiving an array of bytes

GArray *arr;

error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "Foobar", &error,
G_TYPE_INT, 42, G_TYPE_STRING, "hello",
G_TYPE_INVALID,
DBUS_TYPE_G_UCHAR_ARRAY, &arr, G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
g_assert (arr != NULL);
printf ("got back %u values", arr->len);

Sending a GHashTable

GHashTable *hash = g_hash_table_new (g_str_hash, g_str_equal);

guint32 ret;

g_hash_table_insert (hash, "foo", "bar");

g_hash_table_insert (hash, "baz", "whee");

error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "HashSize", &error,
DBUS_TYPE_G_STRING_STRING_HASH, hash, G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_UINT, &ret, G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
g_assert (ret == 2);
g_hash_table_destroy (hash);

Receiving a boolean and a string

gboolean boolret;
char *strret;

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error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "GetStuff", &error,
G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_BOOLEAN, &boolret,
G_TYPE_STRING, &strret,
G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
printf ("%s %s", boolret ? "TRUE" : "FALSE", strret);
g_free (strret);

Sending two arrays of strings

/* NULL terminate */
char *strs_static[] = {"foo", "bar", "baz", NULL};
/* Take pointer to array; cannot pass array directly */
char **strs_static_p = strs_static;
char **strs_dynamic;

strs_dynamic = g_new (char *, 4);

strs_dynamic[0] = g_strdup ("hello");
strs_dynamic[1] = g_strdup ("world");
strs_dynamic[2] = g_strdup ("!");
/* NULL terminate */
strs_dynamic[3] = NULL;

error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "TwoStrArrays", &error,
G_TYPE_STRV, strs_static_p,
G_TYPE_STRV, strs_dynamic,
G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
g_strfreev (strs_dynamic);

Sending a boolean, receiving an array of strings

char **strs;
char **strs_p;
gboolean blah;

error = NULL;
blah = TRUE;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "GetStrs", &error,
G_TYPE_BOOLEAN, blah,
G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_STRV, &strs,
G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
for (strs_p = strs; *strs_p; strs_p++)
printf ("got string: \"%s\"", *strs_p);
g_strfreev (strs);

Sending a variant

GValue val = {0, };

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g_value_init (&val, G_TYPE_STRING);

g_value_set_string (&val, "hello world");

error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "SendVariant", &error,
G_TYPE_VALUE, &val, G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
g_assert (ret == 2);
g_value_unset (&val);

Receiving a variant

GValue val = {0, };

error = NULL;
if (!dbus_g_proxy_call (proxy, "GetVariant", &error, G_TYPE_INVALID,
G_TYPE_VALUE, &val, G_TYPE_INVALID))
{
/* Handle error */
}
if (G_VALUE_TYPE (&val) == G_TYPE_STRING)
printf ("%s\n", g_value_get_string (&val));
else if (G_VALUE_TYPE (&val) == G_TYPE_INT)
printf ("%d\n", g_value_get_int (&val));
else
...
g_value_unset (&val);

Generated Bindings

By using the Introspection XML files, convenient client-side bindings can be automatically
created to ease the use of a remote DBus object.

Here is a sample XML file which describes an object that exposes one method, named
ManyArgs.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<node name="/com/example/MyObject">
<interface name="com.example.MyObject">
<method name="ManyArgs">
<arg type="u" name="x" direction="in" />
<arg type="s" name="str" direction="in" />
<arg type="d" name="trouble" direction="in" />
<arg type="d" name="d_ret" direction="out" />
<arg type="s" name="str_ret" direction="out" />
</method>
</interface>
</node>

Run dbus-binding-tool --mode=glib-client FILENAME > HEADER_NAME to generate the header file. For
example: dbus-binding-tool --mode=glib-client my-object.xml > my-object-
bindings.h. This will generate inline functions with the following prototypes:

/* This is a blocking call */

gboolean
com_example_MyObject_many_args (DBusGProxy *proxy, const guint IN_x,

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const char * IN_str, const gdouble IN_trouble,

gdouble* OUT_d_ret, char ** OUT_str_ret,
GError **error);

/* This is a non-blocking call */

DBusGProxyCall*
com_example_MyObject_many_args_async (DBusGProxy *proxy, const guint IN_x,
const char * IN_str, const gdouble IN_trouble,
com_example_MyObject_many_args_reply callback,
gpointer userdata);

/* This is the typedef for the non-blocking callback */

typedef void
(*com_example_MyObject_many_args_reply)
(DBusGProxy *proxy, gdouble OUT_d_ret, char * OUT_str_ret,
GError *error, gpointer userdata);

The first argument in all functions is a DBusGProxy *, which you should create with the usual
dbus_g_proxy_new_* functions. Following that are the "in" arguments, and then either the "out"
arguments and a GError * for the synchronous (blocking) function, or callback and user data
arguments for the asynchronous (non-blocking) function. The callback in the asynchronous
function passes the DBusGProxy *, the returned "out" arguments, an GError * which is set if there
was an error otherwise NULL, and the user data.

As with the server-side bindings support (see the section called “GLib API: Implementing
Objects”), the exact behaviour of the client-side bindings can be manipulated using
"annotations". Currently the only annotation used by the client bindings is
org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.NoReply, which sets the flag indicating that the client isn't expecting a
reply to the method call, so a reply shouldn't be sent. This is often used to speed up rapid
method calls where there are no "out" arguments, and not knowing if the method succeeded
is an acceptable compromise to half the traffic on the bus.

GLib API: Implementing Objects

At the moment, to expose a GObject via D-Bus, you must write XML by hand which
describes the methods exported by the object. In the future, this manual step will be
obviated by the upcoming GLib introspection support.

Here is a sample XML file which describes an object that exposes one method, named
ManyArgs.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<node name="/com/example/MyObject">

<interface name="com.example.MyObject">
<annotation name="org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.CSymbol" value="my_object"/>
<method name="ManyArgs">
<!-- This is optional, and in this case is redunundant -->
<annotation name="org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.CSymbol" value="my_object_many_args"/>
<arg type="u" name="x" direction="in" />
<arg type="s" name="str" direction="in" />
<arg type="d" name="trouble" direction="in" />
<arg type="d" name="d_ret" direction="out" />
<arg type="s" name="str_ret" direction="out" />
</method>
</interface>
</node>

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This XML is in the same format as the D-Bus introspection XML format. Except we must
include an "annotation" which give the C symbols corresponding to the object
implementation prefix (my_object). In addition, if particular methods symbol names deviate
from C convention (i.e. ManyArgs -> many_args), you may specify an annotation giving the C
symbol.

Once you have written this XML, run dbus-binding-tool --mode=glib-server FILENAME > HEADER_NAME. to
generate a header file. For example: dbus-binding-tool --mode=glib-server
my-object.xml > my-object-glue.h.

Next, include the generated header in your program, and invoke dbus_g_object_class_install_info
in the class initializer, passing the object class and "object info" included in the header. For
example:

dbus_g_object_type_install_info (COM_FOO_TYPE_MY_OBJECT, &com_foo_my_object_info);

This should be done exactly once per object class.

To actually implement the method, just define a C function named e.g. my_object_many_args in
the same file as the info header is included. At the moment, it is required that this function
conform to the following rules:

The function must return a value of type gboolean; TRUE on success, and FALSE otherwise.

The first parameter is a pointer to an instance of the object.

Following the object instance pointer are the method input values.

Following the input values are pointers to return values.

The final parameter must be a GError **. If the function returns FALSE for an error, the
error parameter must be initalized with g_set_error.

Finally, you can export an object using dbus_g_connection_register_g_object. For example:

dbus_g_connection_register_g_object (connection,
"/com/foo/MyObject",
obj);

Server-side Annotations

There are several annotations that are used when generating the server-side bindings. The
most common annotation is org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.CSymbol but there are other annotations
which are often useful.

org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.CSymbol

This annotation is used to specify the C symbol names for the various types (interface,
method, etc), if it differs from the name DBus generates.

org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.Async

This annotation marks the method implementation as an asynchronous function, which

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doesn't return a response straight away but will send the response at some later point
to complete the call. This is used to implement non-blocking services where method
calls can take time.

When a method is asynchronous, the function prototype is different. It is required that

the function conform to the following rules:

The function must return a value of type gboolean; TRUE on success, and FALSE
otherwise. TODO: the return value is currently ignored.

The first parameter is a pointer to an instance of the object.

Following the object instance pointer are the method input values.

The final parameter must be a DBusGMethodInvocation *. This is used when sending the
response message back to the client, by calling dbus_g_method_return or
dbus_g_method_return_error.

org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.Const

This attribute can only be applied to "out" <arg> nodes, and specifies that the parameter
isn't being copied when returned. For example, this turns a 's' argument from a char **
to a const char **, and results in the argument not being freed by DBus after the message
is sent.

org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.ReturnVal

This attribute can only be applied to "out" <arg> nodes, and alters the expected function
signature. It currently can be set to two values: "" or "error". The argument marked with
this attribute is not returned via a pointer argument, but by the function's return
value. If the attribute's value is the empty string, the GError * argument is also omitted
so there is no standard way to return an error value. This is very useful for interfacing
with existing code, as it is possible to match existing APIs. If the attribute's value is
"error", then the final argument is a GError * as usual.

Some examples to demonstrate the usage. This introspection XML:

<method name="Increment">
<arg type="u" name="x" />
<arg type="u" direction="out" />
</method>

Expects the following function declaration:

gboolean
my_object_increment (MyObject *obj, gint32 x, gint32 *ret, GError **error);

This introspection XML:

<method name="IncrementRetval">
<arg type="u" name="x" />
<arg type="u" direction="out" >
<annotation name="org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.ReturnVal" value=""/>
</arg>

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</method>

Expects the following function declaration:

gint32
my_object_increment_retval (MyObject *obj, gint32 x)

This introspection XML:

<method name="IncrementRetvalError">
<arg type="u" name="x" />
<arg type="u" direction="out" >
<annotation name="org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.ReturnVal" value="error"/>
</arg>
</method>

Expects the following function declaration:

gint32
my_object_increment_retval_error (MyObject *obj, gint32 x, GError **error)

Python API
The Python API, dbus-python, is now documented separately in the dbus-python tutorial
(also available in doc/tutorial.txt, and doc/tutorial.html if built with python-docutils, in the
dbus-python source distribution).

Qt API: Using Remote Objects

The Qt bindings are not yet documented.

Qt API: Implementing Objects

The Qt bindings are not yet documented.

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