Crate glib

Rust GLib and GObject bindings

Rust bindings and wrappers for GLib, part of gtk-rs-core.

GLib 2.56 is the lowest supported version for the underlying library.

This library contains bindings to GLib and GObject types and APIs as well as common building blocks used in both handmade and machine generated bindings to GTK and other GLib-based libraries.

It is the foundation for higher level libraries with uniform Rusty (safe and strongly typed) APIs. It avoids exposing GLib-specific data types where possible and is not meant to provide comprehensive GLib bindings, which would often amount to duplicating the Rust Standard Library or other utility crates.

Minimum supported Rust version

Currently, the minimum supported Rust version is 1.64.0.

Dynamic typing

Most types in the GLib family have Type identifiers. Their corresponding Rust types implement the StaticType trait.

A dynamically typed Value can carry values of any StaticType. Variants can carry values of StaticVariantType.

Errors

Errors are represented by Error, which can carry values from various error domains such as FileError.

Objects

Each class and interface has a corresponding smart pointer struct representing an instance of that type (e.g. Object for GObject or gtk::Widget for GtkWidget). They are reference counted and feature interior mutability similarly to Rust’s Rc<RefCell<T>> idiom. Consequently, cloning objects is cheap and their methods never require mutable borrows. Two smart pointers are equal if they point to the same object.

The root of the object hierarchy is Object. Inheritance and subtyping is denoted with the IsA marker trait. The Cast trait enables upcasting and downcasting.

Interfaces and non-leaf classes also have corresponding traits (e.g. ObjectExt or gtk::WidgetExt), which are blanketly implemented for all their subtypes.

You can create new subclasses of Object or other object types. Look at the module’s documentation for further details and a code example.

Under the hood

GLib-based libraries largely operate on pointers to various boxed or reference counted structures so the bindings have to implement corresponding smart pointers (wrappers), which encapsulate resource management and safety checks. Such wrappers are defined via the wrapper macro, which uses abstractions defined in the wrapper, boxed, shared and object modules.

The translate module defines and partly implements conversions between high level Rust types (including the aforementioned wrappers) and their FFI counterparts.

Documentation

• Rust API - Stable
• Rust API - Development
• C API
• GTK Installation instructions

Using

We recommend using crates from crates.io, as demonstrated here.

If you want to track the bleeding edge, use the git dependency instead:

[dependencies]
glib = { git = "https://github.com/gtk-rs/gtk-rs-core.git", package = "glib" }

Avoid mixing versioned and git crates like this:

# This will not compile
[dependencies]
glib = "0.13"
glib = { git = "https://github.com/gtk-rs/gtk-rs-core.git", package = "glib" }

License

glib is available under the MIT License, please refer to it.

Re-exports

• pub use ffi;
• pub use gobject_ffi;
• pub use self::closure::Closure;
• pub use self::closure::RustClosure;
• pub use self::error::BoolError;
• pub use self::error::Error;
• pub use self::object::BorrowedObject;
• pub use self::object::Cast;
• pub use self::object::CastNone;
• pub use self::object::Class;
• pub use self::object::InitiallyUnowned;
• pub use self::object::Interface;
• pub use self::object::IsA;
• pub use self::object::Object;
• pub use self::object::ObjectExt;
• pub use self::object::ObjectType;
• pub use self::object::SendWeakRef;
• pub use self::object::WeakRef;
• pub use self::signal::signal_handler_block;
• pub use self::signal::signal_handler_disconnect;
• pub use self::signal::signal_handler_unblock;
• pub use self::signal::signal_stop_emission_by_name;
• pub use self::signal::SignalHandlerId;
• pub use self::types::ILong;
• pub use self::types::Pointer;
• pub use self::types::StaticType;
• pub use self::types::StaticTypeExt;
• pub use self::types::Type;
• pub use self::types::ULong;
• pub use self::value::BoxedValue;
• pub use self::value::SendValue;
• pub use self::value::ToSendValue;
• pub use self::value::ToValue;
• pub use self::value::Value;
• pub use self::variant::FixedSizeVariantArray;
• pub use self::variant::FixedSizeVariantType;
• pub use self::variant::FromVariant;
• pub use self::variant::StaticVariantType;
• pub use self::variant::ToVariant;
• pub use self::variant::Variant;
• pub use collections::ptr_slice::IntoPtrSlice;
• pub use collections::strv::IntoStrV;
• pub use collections::List;
• pub use collections::PtrSlice;
• pub use collections::SList;
• pub use collections::Slice;
• pub use collections::StrV;
• pub use self::char::*;
• pub use self::source::*;

Modules

• boxed
  IMPL Boxed wrapper implementation.
• boxed_inline
  IMPL BoxedInline wrapper implementation.
• char
• clone
• closure
• collections
• error
  Error binding and helper trait.
• object
  IMPL Object wrapper implementation and Object binding.
• prelude
  Traits and essential types intended for blanket imports.
• shared
  IMPL Shared (reference counted) wrapper implementation.
• signal
  IMPL Low level signal support.
• source
• subclass
  Module containing infrastructure for subclassing GObjects and registering boxed types.
• thread_guard
• translate
  Translation between GLib/GLib-based FFI types and their Rust counterparts.
• types
  Runtime type information.
• value
  Value binding and helper traits.
• variant
  Variant binding and helper traits.
• wrapper
  IMPL The wrapper! macro and miscellaneous wrapper traits.

Macros

• bool_error
  Generic error used for functions that fail without any further information
• clone
  Macro for passing variables as strong or weak references into a closure.
• closure
  Macro for creating a Closure object. This is a wrapper around Closure::new that automatically type checks its arguments at run-time.
• closure_local
  The same as closure! but uses Closure::new_local as a constructor. This is useful for closures which can’t be sent across threads. See the documentation of closure! for details.
• debuglog_macros
  A macro which behaves exactly as log::debug! except that it sets the current log target to the contents of a G_LOG_DOMAIN constant (and fails to build if not defined).
• errorlog_macros
  A macro which behaves exactly as log::error! except that it sets the current log target to the contents of a G_LOG_DOMAIN constant (and fails to build if not defined).
• function_name
  This macro returns the name of the enclosing function. As the internal implementation is based on the std::any::type_name, this macro derives all the limitations of this function.
• g_critical
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_debug
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_error
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_info
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_log
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_message
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• g_print
  Macro used to print messages. It uses g_print.
• g_printerr
  Macro used to print error messages. It uses g_printerr.
• g_warning
  Macro used to log using GLib logging system. It uses g_log.
• gformat
  Creates a GString using interpolation of runtime expressions.
• glib_boxed_inline_wrapper
  Wrapper implementations for BoxedInline types. See wrapper!.
• glib_boxed_wrapper
  Wrapper implementations for Boxed types. See wrapper!.
• glib_object_wrapper
  ObjectType implementations for Object types. See wrapper!.
• glib_shared_wrapper
  Wrapper implementations for shared types. See wrapper!.
• gstr
  Converts a static string literal into a static nul-terminated string.
• infolog_macros
  A macro which behaves exactly as log::info! except that it sets the current log target to the contents of a G_LOG_DOMAIN constant (and fails to build if not defined).
• log_structured
  Macro used to log using GLib structured logging system.
• result_from_gboolean
• tracelog_macros
  A macro which behaves exactly as log::trace! except that it sets the current log target to the contents of a G_LOG_DOMAIN constant (and fails to build if not defined).
• warnlog_macros
  A macro which behaves exactly as log::warn! except that it sets the current log target to the contents of a G_LOG_DOMAIN constant (and fails to build if not defined).
• wrapper
  Defines a wrapper type and implements the appropriate traits.

Structs

• Binding
  Binding is the representation of a binding between a property on a Object instance (or source) and another property on another Object instance (or target).
• BindingFlags
  Flags to be passed to ObjectExt::bind_property() or [ObjectExt::bind_property_full()][crate::prelude::ObjectExt::bind_property_full()].
• BindingGroupv2_72
  The BindingGroup can be used to bind multiple properties from an object collectively.
• BindingGroupBuilderv2_72
  Builder for binding group bindings.
• BoxedAnyObject
  This is a subclass of glib::object::Object capable of storing any Rust type. It let’s you insert a Rust type anywhere a glib::object::Object is needed. The inserted value can then be borrowed as a Rust type, by using the various provided methods.
• ByteArray
• Bytes
  A shared immutable byte slice (the equivalent of Rc<[u8]>).
• Checksum
• CollationKey
  A CollationKey allows ordering strings using the linguistically correct rules for the current locale.
• Date
• DateTime
• EnumClass
  Representation of an enum for dynamically, at runtime, querying the values of the enum and using them.
• EnumValue
  Representation of a single enum value of an EnumClass.
• ExitCode
• FileSetContentsFlagsv2_66
• FilenameCollationKey
  A FilenameCollationKey allows ordering file names using the linguistically correct rules for the current locale. Compared to CollationKey, filename collation keys take into consideration dots and other characters commonly found in file names.
• FlagsBuilder
  Builder for conveniently setting/unsetting flags and returning a Value.
• FlagsClass
  Representation of a flags for dynamically, at runtime, querying the values of the enum and using them
• FlagsValue
  Representation of a single flags value of a FlagsClass.
• FormatSizeFlags
• FutureWithTimeoutError
  The error returned when a future times out.
• GStr
  Representation of a borrowed GString.
• GStrInteriorNulError
  Error type indicating that a buffer had unexpected nul-bytes.
• GString
  A type representing an owned, C-compatible, nul-terminated UTF-8 string.
• GStringBuilder
  A mutable text buffer that grows automatically.
• GStringInteriorNulError
  Error type indicating that a buffer had unexpected nul-bytes.
• GStringNoTrailingNulError
  Error type indicating that a buffer did not have a trailing nul-byte.
• GStringPtr
  NULL-terminated UTF-8 string as stored in [StrV].
• GStringUtf8Error
  Error type indicating that a buffer had invalid UTF-8.
• GlibLogger
  An implementation of a log compatible logger which logs over glib logging facilities.
• IConv
• IOCondition
• JoinError
  Task failure from awaiting a JoinHandle.
• JoinHandle
  A handle to a task running on a MainContext.
• KeyFile
• KeyFileFlags
• LogField
  Structure representing a single field in a structured log entry.
• LogHandlerId
• LogLevelFlags
• LogLevels
• MainContext
• MainContextAcquireGuard
• MainContextFlagsv2_72
• MainLoop
• MarkupParseContext
• OptionFlags
• ParamFlags
  Through the ParamFlags flag values, certain aspects of parameters can be configured.
• ParamSpec
  ParamSpec is an object structure that encapsulates the metadata required to specify parameters, such as e.g. Object properties.
• ParamSpecBoolean
• ParamSpecBooleanBuilder
• ParamSpecBoxed
• ParamSpecBoxedBuilder
• ParamSpecChar
• ParamSpecCharBuilder
• ParamSpecDouble
• ParamSpecDoubleBuilder
• ParamSpecEnum
• ParamSpecEnumBuilder
• ParamSpecFlags
• ParamSpecFlagsBuilder
• ParamSpecFloat
• ParamSpecFloatBuilder
• ParamSpecGType
• ParamSpecGTypeBuilder
• ParamSpecInt
• ParamSpecInt64
• ParamSpecInt64Builder
• ParamSpecIntBuilder
• ParamSpecLong
• ParamSpecLongBuilder
• ParamSpecObject
• ParamSpecObjectBuilder
• ParamSpecOverride
• ParamSpecOverrideBuilder
• ParamSpecParam
• ParamSpecParamBuilder
• ParamSpecPointer
• ParamSpecPointerBuilder
• ParamSpecString
• ParamSpecStringBuilder
• ParamSpecUChar
• ParamSpecUCharBuilder
• ParamSpecUInt
• ParamSpecUInt64
• ParamSpecUInt64Builder
• ParamSpecUIntBuilder
• ParamSpecULong
• ParamSpecULongBuilder
• ParamSpecUnichar
• ParamSpecUnicharBuilder
• ParamSpecValueArray
• ParamSpecValueArrayBuilder
• ParamSpecVariant
• ParamSpecVariantBuilder
• Quark
• Receiver
  A Receiver that can be attached to a main context to receive items from its corresponding Sender or SyncSender.
• Sender
  A Sender that can be used to send items to the corresponding main context receiver.
• SignalFlags
  The signal flags are used to specify a signal’s behaviour.
• SignalGroupv2_74
  SignalGroup manages to simplify the process of connecting many signals to a Object as a group. As such there is no API to disconnect a signal from the group.
• Source
• SourceFuture
  Represents a Future around a glib::Source. The future will be resolved once the source has provided a value
• SourceStream
  Represents a Stream around a glib::Source. The stream will be provide all values that are provided by the source
• SpawnFlags
• SpawnWithinJoinHandle
  Variant of JoinHandle that is returned from MainContext::spawn_from_within.
• SyncSender
  A SyncSender that can be used to send items to the corresponding main context receiver.
• ThreadHandle
  A handle to a thread running on a ThreadPool.
• ThreadPool
• TimeSpan
  A value representing an interval of time, in microseconds.
• TimeZone
• Uriv2_66
• UriFlagsv2_66
• UriHideFlagsv2_66
• UriParamsFlagsv2_66
• ValueArray
• VariantDict
  VariantDict is a mutable key/value store where the keys are always strings and the values are Variants.
• VariantIter
  Iterator over items in a variant.
• VariantStrIter
  Iterator over items in a variant of type as.
• VariantTy
  Describes Variant types.
• VariantTyIterator
  An iterator over the individual components of a tuple VariantTy.
• VariantType
  Describes Variant types.

Enums

• ChecksumType
• ConvertError
• CvtError
  A wrapper for ConvertError that can hold an offset into the input string.
• DateMonth
• DateWeekday
• FileError
• GStrError
  Error type holding all possible failures when creating a GStr reference.
• GStringFromError
  Error type holding all possible failures when creating a GString.
• GlibLoggerDomain
  Enumeration of the possible domain handling behaviours for a GlibLogger.
• GlibLoggerFormat
  Enumeration of the possible formatting behaviours for a GlibLogger.
• IConvError
  A wrapper for std::io::Error that can hold an offset into an input string.
• KeyFileError
• LogLevel
• LogWriterOutput
• MarkupError
• NormalizeMode
• OptionArg
• SeekType
• TimeType
• UnicodeScript
• UriErrorv2_66
• UserDirectory
• VariantClass
  The range of possible top-level types of Variant instances.

Constants

• CLONE_MACRO_LOG_DOMAIN
  This is the log domain used by the clone! macro. If you want to use a custom logger (it prints to stdout by default), you can set your own logger using the corresponding log functions.
• NONE_STR

Statics

• CSET_A_2_Z
• CSET_DIGITS
• CSET_a_2_z
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_GROUP
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_ACTIONS
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_CATEGORIES
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_COMMENT
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_DBUS_ACTIVATABLE
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_EXEC
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_GENERIC_NAME
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_HIDDEN
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_ICON
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_MIME_TYPE
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_NAME
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_NOT_SHOW_IN
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_NO_DISPLAY
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_ONLY_SHOW_IN
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_PATH
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_STARTUP_NOTIFY
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_STARTUP_WM_CLASS
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_TERMINAL
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_TRY_EXEC
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_TYPE
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_URL
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_KEY_VERSION
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_TYPE_APPLICATION
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_TYPE_DIRECTORY
• KEY_FILE_DESKTOP_TYPE_LINK
• OPTION_REMAINING
• STR_DELIMITERS
• TEST_OPTION_ISOLATE_DIRSv2_60
• URI_RESERVED_CHARS_GENERIC_DELIMITERS
• URI_RESERVED_CHARS_SUBCOMPONENT_DELIMITERS
• g_param_spec_types

Traits

• HasParamSpec
• IntoGStr
  A trait to accept both &str or &GStr as an argument.
• IntoOptionalGStr
  A trait to accept both Option<&str> or Option<&GStr> as an argument.
• ParamSpecBuilderExt
  A trait implemented by the various ParamSpec builder types.
• ParamSpecType
• Property
  A type that can be used as a property. It covers every type which have an associated ParamSpec (HasParamSpec) and some useful types wrapping HasParamSpec. The definition is recursive, so you can nest many Propertys together. The final ParamSpec will be the one of the innermost type
• PropertyGet
  A container type implementing this trait can be read by the default getter generated by the Props macro.
• PropertySet
  A container type implementing this trait can be written by the default setter generated by the Props macro.
• PropertySetNested
  A container type implementing this trait can be written by the default setter generated by the Props macro. It takes a FnOnce(&mut Self::Value) so that the caller may access nested fields of a struct by doing ${Self::Value}.member

Functions

• access
• application_name
• base64_decode
• base64_encode
• casefold
• charset
  Obtain the character set for the current locale.
• check_version
• child_watch_future
  Create a Future that will resolve once the child process with the given pid exits
• child_watch_future_with_priority
  Create a Future that will resolve once the child process with the given pid exits
• codeset
• compute_checksum_for_bytes
• compute_checksum_for_data
• compute_hmac_for_bytes
• compute_hmac_for_data
• console_charsetv2_62
• convert
• convert_with_fallback
• current_dir
• dcgettext
• dgettext
• dngettext
• dpgettext
• dpgettext2
• environ
• environ_getenv
• file_get_contents
• file_open_tmp
• file_set_contents
• file_set_contents_fullv2_66
• filename_charsets
• filename_display_basename
• filename_display_name
• filename_from_uri
• filename_from_utf8
• filename_to_uri
• filename_to_utf8
• find_program_in_path
• format_size
• format_size_full
• future_with_timeout
  Add a timeout to a Future.
• future_with_timeout_with_priority
  Add a timeout to a Future.
• getenv
• home_dir
• host_name
• hostname_is_ascii_encoded
• hostname_is_ip_address
• hostname_is_non_ascii
• hostname_to_ascii
• hostname_to_unicode
• interval_stream
  Create a Stream that will provide a value every given number of milliseconds.
• interval_stream_seconds
  Create a Stream that will provide a value every given number of seconds.
• interval_stream_seconds_with_priority
  Create a Stream that will provide a value every given number of seconds.
• interval_stream_with_priority
  Create a Stream that will provide a value every given number of milliseconds.
• is_canonical_pspec_name
• language_names
• language_names_with_categoryv2_58
• listenv
• locale_from_utf8
• locale_to_utf8
• locale_variants
• log_default_handler
• log_remove_handler
• log_set_always_fatal
• log_set_default_handler
  To set back the default print handler, use the log_unset_default_handler function.
• log_set_fatal_mask
• log_set_handler
• log_set_writer_func
• log_structured_array
• log_unset_default_handler
  To set the default print handler, use the log_set_default_handler function.
• log_variant
• log_writer_default
• log_writer_default_set_use_stderr^⚠v2_68
  Sets whether GLib log functions output to stderr or stdout.
• log_writer_default_would_dropv2_68
• log_writer_format_fields
• log_writer_is_journald
• log_writer_journald
• log_writer_standard_streams
• log_writer_supports_color
• main_current_source
• main_depth
• markup_escape_text
• mkdir_with_parents
• mkdtemp
• mkdtemp_full
• mkstemp
• mkstemp_full
• monotonic_time
• normalize
• num_processors
• on_error_query
  Prompts the user with [E]xit, [H]alt, show [S]tack trace or [P]roceed. This function is intended to be used for debugging use only. The following example shows how it can be used together with the g_log() functions.
• on_error_stack_trace
• os_infov2_64
• prgname
• program_name
  Same as get_prgname().
• random_double
• random_double_range
• random_int
• random_int_range
• random_set_seed
• real_name
• real_time
• reload_user_special_dirs_cache
• rust_log_handler
  Provides a glib log handler which routes all logging messages to the log crate.
• set_application_name
• set_prgname
• set_print_handler
  To set back the default print handler, use the unset_print_handler function.
• set_printerr_handler
  To set back the default print handler, use the unset_printerr_handler function.
• set_program_name
  Same as set_prgname().
• setenv
• shell_parse_argv
• shell_quote
• shell_unquote
• spaced_primes_closest
• spawn_async
• spawn_async_with_fdsv2_58 and non-Windows
• spawn_async_with_pipesNon-Windows
• spawn_check_exit_status
• spawn_check_wait_statusv2_70
• spawn_command_line_asyncUnix
• system_config_dirs
• system_data_dirs
• timeout_future
  Create a Future that will resolve after the given number of milliseconds.
• timeout_future_seconds
  Create a Future that will resolve after the given number of seconds.
• timeout_future_seconds_with_priority
  Create a Future that will resolve after the given number of seconds.
• timeout_future_with_priority
  Create a Future that will resolve after the given number of milliseconds.
• tmp_dir
• unicode_script_from_iso15924
• unicode_script_to_iso15924
• unix_open_pipe
• unix_signal_futureUnix
  Create a Future that will resolve once the given UNIX signal is raised
• unix_signal_future_with_priorityUnix
  Create a Future that will resolve once the given UNIX signal is raised
• unix_signal_streamUnix
  Create a Stream that will provide a value whenever the given UNIX signal is raised
• unix_signal_stream_with_priorityUnix
  Create a Stream that will provide a value whenever the given UNIX signal is raised
• unlink
• unset_print_handler
  To set the default print handler, use the set_print_handler function.
• unset_printerr_handler
  To set the default print handler, use the set_printerr_handler function.
• unsetenv
• uri_escape_string
• uri_parse_scheme
• uri_unescape_segment
• uri_unescape_string
• user_cache_dir
• user_config_dir
• user_data_dir
• user_name
• user_runtime_dir
• user_special_dir
• user_state_dirv2_72
• usleep
• utf8_to_utf32
• utf32_to_utf8
• uuid_string_is_valid
• uuid_string_random

Type Definitions

• DateDay
• DateYear
• Time

Attribute Macros

• flags
  Attribute macro for defining flags using the bitflags crate. This macro will also define a GFlags::type_ function and the glib::Value traits.
• object_interface
  Macro for boilerplate of ObjectInterface implementations.
• object_subclass
  Macro for boilerplate of ObjectSubclass implementations.

Derive Macros

• Boxed
  Derive macro for defining a BoxedType::type_ function and the glib::Value traits. Optionally, the type can be marked as nullable to get an implemention of glib::value::ToValueOptional.
• Downgrade
  Macro for deriving implementations of glib::clone::Downgrade and glib::clone::Upgrade traits and a weak type.
• Enum
  Derive macro for register a rust enum in the glib type system and derive the the glib::Value traits.
• ErrorDomain
  Derive macro for defining a GLib error domain and its associated ErrorDomain trait.
• Properties
  This macro enables you to derive object properties in a quick way.
• SharedBoxed
  Derive macro for defining a SharedType::get_type function and the glib::Value traits. Optionally, the type can be marked as nullable to get an implemention of glib::value::ToValueOptional.
• ValueDelegate
  Example
• Variant
  Derive macro for serializing/deserializing custom structs/enums as glib::Variants.