Struct
GLibVariantType
Description
struct GVariantType {
/* No available fields */
}
This section introduces the GVariant type system. It is based, in large part, on the D-Bus type system, with two major changes and some minor lifting of restrictions. The D-Bus specification, therefore, provides a significant amount of information that is useful when working with GVariant.
The first major change with respect to the D-Bus type system is the introduction of maybe (or “nullable”) types. Any type in GVariant can be converted to a maybe type, in which case, “nothing” (or “null”) becomes a valid value. Maybe types have been added by introducing the character “m” to type strings.
The second major change is that the GVariant type system supports the concept of “indefinite types” — types that are less specific than the normal types found in D-Bus. For example, it is possible to speak of “an array of any type” in GVariant, where the D-Bus type system would require you to speak of “an array of integers” or “an array of strings”. Indefinite types have been added by introducing the characters “*”, “?” and “r” to type strings.
Finally, all arbitrary restrictions relating to the complexity of types are lifted along with the restriction that dictionary entries may only appear nested inside of arrays.
Just as in D-Bus, GVariant types are described with strings (“type strings”). Subject to the differences mentioned above, these strings are of the same form as those found in D-Bus. Note, however: D-Bus always works in terms of messages and therefore individual type strings appear nowhere in its interface. Instead, “signatures” are a concatenation of the strings of the type of each argument in a message. GVariant deals with single values directly so GVariant type strings always describe the type of exactly one value. This means that a D-Bus signature string is generally not a valid GVariant type string — except in the case that it is the signature of a message containing exactly one argument.
An indefinite type is similar in spirit to what may be called an
abstract type in other type systems. No value can exist that has an
indefinite type as its type, but values can exist that have types
that are subtypes of indefinite types. That is to say,
g_variant_get_type()
will never return an indefinite type, but
calling g_variant_is_of_type()
with an indefinite type may return
TRUE
. For example, you cannot have a value that represents “an
array of no particular type”, but you can have an “array of integers”
which certainly matches the type of “an array of no particular type”,
since “array of integers” is a subtype of “array of no particular type”.
This is similar to how instances of abstract classes may not
directly exist in other type systems, but instances of their
non-abstract subtypes may. For example, in GTK, no object that has
the type of GtkBin
can exist (since GtkBin
is an abstract class),
but a GtkWindow
can certainly be instantiated, and you would say
that the GtkWindow
is a GtkBin
(since GtkWindow
is a subclass of
GtkBin
).
GVariant Type Strings
A GVariant type string can be any of the following:
-
any basic type string (listed below)
-
“v”, “r” or “*”
-
one of the characters ‘a’ or ‘m’, followed by another type string
-
the character ‘(‘, followed by a concatenation of zero or more other type strings, followed by the character ‘)’
-
the character ‘{‘, followed by a basic type string (see below), followed by another type string, followed by the character ‘}’
A basic type string describes a basic type (as per g_variant_type_is_basic()) and is always a single character in length. The valid basic type strings are “b”, “y”, “n”, “q”, “i”, “u”, “x”, “t”, “h”, “d”, “s”, “o”, “g” and “?”.
The above definition is recursive to arbitrary depth. “aaaaai” and
“(ui(nq((y)))s)” are both valid type strings, as is
“a(aa(ui)(qna{ya(yd)}))”. In order to not hit memory limits, GVariant
imposes a limit on recursion depth of 65 nested containers. This is the
limit in the D-Bus specification (64) plus one to allow a GDBusMessage
to
be nested in a top-level tuple.
The meaning of each of the characters is as follows:
- b
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_BOOLEAN
; a boolean value.
- y
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_BYTE
; a byte.
- n
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_INT16
; a signed 16 bit integer.
- q
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_UINT16
; an unsigned 16 bit integer.
- i
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_INT32
; a signed 32 bit integer.
- u
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_UINT32
; an unsigned 32 bit integer.
- x
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_INT64
; a signed 64 bit integer.
- t
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_UINT64
; an unsigned 64 bit integer.
- h
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_HANDLE
; a signed 32 bit value
that, by convention, is used as an index into an array of file
descriptors that are sent alongside a D-Bus message.
- d
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_DOUBLE
; a double precision
floating point value.
- s
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_STRING
; a string.
- o
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_OBJECT_PATH
; a string in the form
of a D-Bus object path.
- g
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_SIGNATURE
; a string in the form of
a D-Bus type signature.
- ?
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_BASIC
; an indefinite type that
is a supertype of any of the basic types.
- v
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_VARIANT
; a container type that
contain any other type of value.
- a
: used as a prefix on another type string to mean an array of that
type; the type string “ai”, for example, is the type of an array of
signed 32-bit integers.
- m
: used as a prefix on another type string to mean a “maybe”, or
“nullable”, version of that type; the type string “ms”, for example,
is the type of a value that maybe contains a string, or maybe contains
nothing.
- ()
: used to enclose zero or more other concatenated type strings to
create a tuple type; the type string “(is)”, for example, is the type of
a pair of an integer and a string.
- r
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_TUPLE
; an indefinite type that is
a supertype of any tuple type, regardless of the number of items.
- {}
: used to enclose a basic type string concatenated with another type
string to create a dictionary entry type, which usually appears inside of
an array to form a dictionary; the type string “a{sd}”, for example, is
the type of a dictionary that maps strings to double precision floating
point values.
The first type (the basic type) is the key type and the second type is
the value type. The reason that the first type is restricted to being a
basic type is so that it can easily be hashed.
- *
: the type string of G_VARIANT_TYPE_ANY
; the indefinite type that is
a supertype of all types. Note that, as with all type strings, this
character represents exactly one type. It cannot be used inside of tuples
to mean “any number of items”.
Any type string of a container that contains an indefinite type is,
itself, an indefinite type. For example, the type string “a”
(corresponding to G_VARIANT_TYPE_ARRAY
) is an indefinite type
that is a supertype of every array type. “(s)” is a supertype
of all tuples that contain exactly two items where the second
item is a string.
“a{?}” is an indefinite type that is a supertype of all arrays
containing dictionary entries where the key is any basic type and
the value is any type at all. This is, by definition, a dictionary,
so this type string corresponds to G_VARIANT_TYPE_DICTIONARY
. Note
that, due to the restriction that the key of a dictionary entry must
be a basic type, “{*}” is not a valid type string.
Constructors
g_variant_type_new
Creates a new GVariantType
corresponding to the type string given
by type_string
. It is appropriate to call g_variant_type_free()
on
the return value.
Available since: 2.24
g_variant_type_new_array
Constructs the type corresponding to an array of elements of the
type type
.
g_variant_type_new_dict_entry
Constructs the type corresponding to a dictionary entry with a key
of type key
and a value of type value
.
g_variant_type_new_maybe
Constructs the type corresponding to a maybe instance containing
type type
or Nothing.
g_variant_type_new_tuple
Constructs a new tuple type, from items
.
Functions
g_variant_type_checked_
g_variant_type_string_get_depth_
g_variant_type_string_is_valid
Checks if type_string
is a valid GVariant type string. This call is
equivalent to calling g_variant_type_string_scan()
and confirming
that the following character is a nul terminator.
g_variant_type_string_scan
Scan for a single complete and valid GVariant type string in string
.
The memory pointed to by limit
(or bytes beyond it) is never accessed.
Available since: 2.24
Instance methods
g_variant_type_copy
Makes a copy of a GVariantType
. It is appropriate to call
g_variant_type_free()
on the return value. type
may not be NULL
.
g_variant_type_dup_string
Returns a newly-allocated copy of the type string corresponding to
type
. The returned string is nul-terminated. It is appropriate to
call g_free()
on the return value.
g_variant_type_element
Determines the element type of an array or maybe type.
g_variant_type_equal
Compares type1
and type2
for equality.
g_variant_type_first
Determines the first item type of a tuple or dictionary entry type.
g_variant_type_free
Frees a GVariantType
that was allocated with
g_variant_type_copy(), g_variant_type_new()
or one of the container
type constructor functions.
g_variant_type_get_string_length
Returns the length of the type string corresponding to the given
type
. This function must be used to determine the valid extent of
the memory region returned by g_variant_type_peek_string().
g_variant_type_hash
Hashes type
.
g_variant_type_is_array
Determines if the given type
is an array type. This is true if the
type string for type
starts with an ‘a’.
g_variant_type_is_basic
Determines if the given type
is a basic type.
g_variant_type_is_container
Determines if the given type
is a container type.
g_variant_type_is_definite
Determines if the given type
is definite (ie: not indefinite).
g_variant_type_is_dict_entry
Determines if the given type
is a dictionary entry type. This is
true if the type string for type
starts with a ‘{‘.
g_variant_type_is_maybe
Determines if the given type
is a maybe type. This is true if the
type string for type
starts with an ‘m’.
g_variant_type_is_subtype_of
Checks if type
is a subtype of supertype
.
g_variant_type_is_tuple
Determines if the given type
is a tuple type. This is true if the
type string for type
starts with a ‘(‘ or if type
is
G_VARIANT_TYPE_TUPLE
.
g_variant_type_is_variant
Determines if the given type
is the variant type.
g_variant_type_key
Determines the key type of a dictionary entry type.
g_variant_type_n_items
Determines the number of items contained in a tuple or dictionary entry type.
g_variant_type_next
Determines the next item type of a tuple or dictionary entry type.
g_variant_type_peek_string
Returns the type string corresponding to the given type
. The
result is not nul-terminated; in order to determine its length you
must call g_variant_type_get_string_length().
g_variant_type_value
Determines the value type of a dictionary entry type.