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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % BOOK_ENTITIES SYSTEM "Wayland.ent">
<!ENTITY doxygen SYSTEM "ClientAPI.xml">
%BOOK_ENTITIES;
]>
<appendix id="sect-Library-Client">
<title>Client API</title>
<section><title>Introduction</title>
<para>
The open-source reference implementation of Wayland protocol is
split in two C libraries, libwayland-client and <link
linkend="sect-Library-Server">libwayland-server</link>. Their main
responsibility is to handle the Inter-process communication
(<emphasis>IPC</emphasis>) with each other, therefore guaranteeing
the protocol objects marshaling and messages synchronization.
</para>
<para>
A client uses libwayland-client to communicate with one or more
wayland servers. A <link
linkend="Client-classwl__display">wl_display</link> object is
created and manages each open connection to a server. At least one
<link linkend="Client-classwl__event__queue">wl_event_queue</link>
object is created for each wl_display, this holds events as they
are received from the server until they can be
processed. Multi-threading is supported by creating an additional
wl_event_queue for each additional thread, each object can have
it's events placed in a particular queue, so potentially a
different thread could be made to handle the events for each
object created.
</para>
<para>
Though some convenience functions are provided, libwayland-client
is designed to allow the calling code to wait for events, so that
different polling mechanisms can be used. A file descriptor is
provided, when it becomes ready for reading the calling code can
ask libwayland-client to read the available events from it into
the wl_event_queue objects.
</para>
<para>
The library only provides low-level access to the wayland objects.
Each object created by the client is represented by a <link
linkend="Client-classwl__proxy">wl_proxy</link> object that this
library creates. This includes the id that is actually
communicated over the socket to the server, a void* data pointer
that is intended to point at a client's representation of the
object, and a pointer to a static <link
linkend="Client-structwl__interface">wl_interface</link> object,
which is generated from the xml and identifies the object's class
and can be used for introspection into the messages and events.
</para>
<para>
Messages are sent by calling wl_proxy_marshal. This will write a
message to the socket, by using the message id and the
wl_interface to identify the types of each argument and convert
them into stream format. Most software will call type-safe
wrappers generated from the xml description of the <link
linkend="appe-Wayland-Protocol">Wayland protocols</link>. For
instance the C header file generated from the xml defines the
following inline function to transmit the <link
linkend="protocol-spec-wl_surface-request-attach">wl_surface::attach</link>
message:
</para>
<programlisting>static inline void
wl_surface_attach(struct wl_surface *wl_surface, struct wl_buffer *buffer, int32_t x, int32_t y)
{
wl_proxy_marshal((struct wl_proxy *) wl_surface, WL_SURFACE_ATTACH, buffer, x, y);
}</programlisting>
<para>
Events (messages from the server) are handled by calling a
"dispatcher" callback the client stores in the wl_proxy for each
event. A language binding for a string-based interpreter, such as
CPython, might have a dispatcher that uses the event name from the
wl_interface to identify the function to call. The default
dispatcher uses the message id number to index an array of
functions pointers, called a wl_listener, and the wl_interface to
convert data from the stream into arguments to the function. The
C header file generated from the xml defines a per-class structure
that forces the function pointers to be of the correct type, for
instance the <link
linkend="protocol-spec-wl_surface-event-enter">wl_surface::enter</link>
event defines this pointer in the wl_surface_listener object:
</para>
<programlisting>struct wl_surface_listener {
void (*enter)(void *data, struct wl_surface *, struct wl_output *);
...
}</programlisting>
<para>
</para>
</section>
&doxygen;
</appendix>