Seth Nickell


    
  

Christophe Fergeau


    
  

Christian Neumair


    
  

for GnomeVFS 2.16.2

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".


Table of Contents

Introduction to GnomeVFS
Uses and Purpose
User's Perspective
Developer's Perspective
A Gentle Programming Primer
Simple Sample Program
Conversion of a Sample Code Block
Initialization/Shutdown -
Basic Data Types
GnomeVFSResult - Result of I/O operations, the equivalent of errno
GnomeVFSURI - A uniform resource identifier.
gnome-vfs-utils - various utilities functions to manipulate uris
GnomeVFSFileInfo - stores information about files, GnomeVFS equivalent of stat
GnomeVFSFileSize - Data types used for specifying file sizes and seek positions
File Operations
Basic File Operations - Essential VFS operations. This includes creating, moving and deleting files, opening and closing file handles.
Reading and Writing Files - Reading from and writing to open file handles.
Truncating Files - Force files to a particular length
Getting and Setting File Information - Convenient high-level abstraction for obtaining and setting file information, including ACLs.
Directory-Specific Operations
Basic Directory Operations - Creating and removing directories.
Listing Directory Contents - Listing the contents of directories.
Locating Standard Directories - Utilities for locating standard directories such as the desktop and trash
Advanced File/Directory Operations
File Transfers - Conveniently copy/move/delete files en masse
Monitoring - watch files for changes, and get called back if they do
Backend-Specific Operations - Execute backend-specific operations
Asynchronous Operations
Asynchronous File Operations - POSIX-style file operations that run outside your main loop
Cancellation - halt in-progress operations
Volumes and Drives Handling
GnomeVFSVolume - Abstraction for a mounted file system or a network location.
GnomeVFSDrive - Container for GnomeVFSVolume (floppy drive, CD reader, ...)
GnomeVFSVolumeMonitor - Monitors volume mounts and unmounts
Networking
Zeroconf networking support - Gets information about available Zeroconf (aka RendezVous) services on a local network.
DNS Resolution - Generic thread-safe address resolution functions.
SSL support functions - Functions to send and receive encrypted data over a socket.
Unified network I/O - Posix style network input/output functions.
Unified bufferd network I/O - Posix style buffered network input/output.
Internet connection - Simple TCP/IP connection functions.
MIME Registry
MIME typing - functions to get a mime-type for a file using its name or its content
gnome-vfs-mime-utils -
MIME Database - functions for getting information about applications and components associated with MIME types.
gnome-vfs-mime-monitor -
gnome-vfs-mime-database-deprecated -
Deprecated Application Registry API - formerly used for managing applications. Replaced by GnomeVFS MIME Database API
Filesystem Modules
Writing Modules - basic gnome-vfs module concepts
gnome-vfs-method -
gnome-vfs-module -
gnome-vfs-module-shared -
gnome-vfs-module-callback-module-api - invoking callbacks from a gnome-vfs module to ask the application for necessary information (authentication, ...)
GnomeVFSContext - contexts allows modules to track thread usage and cancellation properly
gnome-vfs-transform -
gnome-vfs-parse-ls - convenience functions for modules which want to parse a ls-like directory listing
gnome-vfs-standard-callbacks - standard callbacks for use by gnome-vfs module writers
gnome-vfs-module-callback - functions used by apps if they want to answer to callback invocations by gnome-vfs modules