mvidner-ruby-dbus 0.2.10

data/NEWS

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+= Ruby D-Bus NEWS
+
+== Ruby D-Bus 0.2.10 - 2009-09-10
+
+Bug fixes:
+
+ * DBus::Service.exists? fixed (Murat Demirten).
+ * Ruby 1.9 fixes (Jedediah Smith).
+ * Fixed an endless sleep in DBus::Main.run (bnc#537401).
+ * Added details to PacketMarshaller exceptions (bnc#538050).
+
+(bnc#FOO refers to https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=FOO )
+
+== Ruby D-Bus "I'm not dead" 0.2.9 - 2009-08-26
+
+Thank you to Paul and Arnaud for starting the project. I, Martin
+Vidner, am continuing with it on GitHub.
+
+ * Fixed passing an array through a variant (no ticket).
+ * Fixed marshalling "av" (Ticket #30).
+ * Fixed variant alignment (Ticket #27).
+ * Added DBus::Main.quit.
+ * Mention the DBus interface in a NameError for an unknown method.
+ * Fixed ruby-1.9 "warning: default `to_a' will be obsolete".
+ * Added Rakefile and gemspec.
+
+== Ruby D-Bus "Thanks for all the fish" 0.2.1 - 2007-12-29
+
+More bugfixes, mostly supplied by users supplying us with patches.  Thanks!
+
+ * Support for new types added: 
+   - dict (courtesy of Drake Wilson);
+   - double (courtesy of Patrick Sissons);
+   - variant.
+ * Improved exception raise support (courtesy of Sjoerd Simons,
+   Patrick Sissons).
+ * Some polish (removed debug output, solved unnecessary warnings).
+ * Documentation updates, example fixes and updates.
+
+== Ruby D-Bus "Almost live from DebConf 7" 0.2.0 - 2007-06-02
+
+Again a bugfix release, also meant to be the public release
+for exploratory purposes. New in 0.2.0:
+
+ * Complete tutorial revamp.
+ * Relicensed to the LGPL.
+
+== Ruby D-Bus "Release Often" 0.1.1 - 2007-04-23
+
+Bugfix release.  Fixes hardcoded string for requesting bus names,
+found by Rudi Cilibrasi.
+
+== Ruby D-Bus "Happy Birthday Paul" 0.1.0 - 2007-04-17
+
+First release. Supports most of D-Bus' features.

data/README

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+= Ruby D-Bus README
+
+Ruby D-Bus provides an implementation of the D-Bus protocol such that the
+D-Bus system can be used in the Ruby programming language.
+
+== Requirements
+
+ * Ruby 1.8 (>= 1.8.6?)
+
+ Optionally, for generating the tutorial:
+ * Webgen (>= 0.4) 
+
+== Installation
+
+ 1. Decompress the Ruby D-Bus tarball (ruby-dbus-<version>.tar.gz).
+ 2. Move to top-level directory and type:
+
+      $ ruby setup.rb config
+      $ ruby setup.rb setup
+     ($ su)
+      # ruby setup.rb install
+
+    You can also install files in your favorite directory by
+    supplying setup.rb some options. Try "ruby setup.rb --help".
+
+== Feature
+
+Ruby D-Bus currently supports the following features:
+
+ * Connecting to local buses.
+ * Accessing remote services, objects and interfaces.
+ * Invoking methods on remote objects synchronously and asynchronously.
+ * Catch signals on remote objects and handle them via callbacks.
+ * Remote object introspection.
+ * Walking object trees.
+ * Creating services and registering them on the bus.
+ * Exporting objects with interfaces on a bus for remote use.
+ * Rubyish D-Bus object and interface syntax support that automatically
+   allows for introspection.
+ * Emitting signals on exported objects.
+
+== Usage
+
+ See some of the examples in the examples/ subdirectory of the tarball.
+ Also, check out the included tutorial (in Webgen format) in doc/tutorial/
+ or view it online on http://trac.luon.net/data/ruby-dbus/tutorial/.
+
+== License
+
+ Ruby D-Bus is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+ under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the
+ Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at
+ your option) any later version.

data/doc/tutorial/src/00.index.page

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+---
+title: Welcome
+inMenu: true
+directoryName: Start
+---
+
+h2. Welcome!
+
+This is the Ruby D-Bus tutorial.  It aims to show you the features of Ruby
+D-Bus and as you read through the tutorial also how to use them.
+
+Please proceed to the "Introduction":intro.html.

data/doc/tutorial/src/10.intro.page

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+---
+title: Introduction
+inMenu: true
+---
+
+This is a tutorial for Ruby D-Bus, a library to access D-Bus facilities of your
+system. This chapter has the following sections:
+
+# "What is D-Bus?":#what-is
+# "Definitions":#def
+## "Client":#def-client
+## "Service":#def-service
+## "Object path":#def-obj-path
+## "Interface":#def-iface
+## "Method":#def-method
+## "Signal":#def-signal
+## "Message":#def-message
+## "Signature":#def-sig
+
+h2(#what-is). What is D-Bus?
+
+D-Bus is an RPC(Remote Procedure Call) protocol.  A common setup can have
+multiple D-Bus daemons running that route procedure calls and signals in
+the form of messages.  Each of these daemons supports a bus.  A bus that
+is often used by modern desktop environments, and is available per session, is
+called the _session bus_.  Another bus that can be available, but in a
+system-wide manner, is called the _system bus_.  It is used for example by
+the "Hardware Abstraction Layer":http://hal.freedesktop.org/ daemon.  Note
+that theoretically the D-Bus RPC protocol can be used without a system or
+session bus.  I never came across any actual use of this though.
+
+At the desktop level, D-Bus allows some components to interact.  Typically
+if you are writing an application or a personal script that wants to
+interact with your web browser, your music player, or that simply wants to
+pop-up a desktop notification, D-Bus comes into play.
+
+At the system level, the Hardware Abstraction Layer is a privileged daemon
+that notifies other software of hardware activities.  Typically, if you
+want to be notified if a CD-ROM has been loaded in, of if you want to
+explore hardware, the system daemon comes into play.
+
+The D-Bus RPC system is as we will see _object oriented_.
+
+Buses provide access to _services_ provided in turn by running or ready to
+run processes.  Let me introduce some D-Bus terminology before we discuss
+the API of Ruby D-Bus.
+
+h2(#def). Definitions
+
+h3(#def-client). Client
+
+A D-Bus client is a process that connects to a D-Bus. They issue method
+calls and register to the bus for signals and events.
+
+h3(#def-service). Service
+
+A connected client can export some of its objects and let other clients
+call some of its methods.  Such clients typically register a special name
+like @org.freedesktop.Notifications@, the service name.
+
+There is slightly different type of service.  They are provided by
+processes that can be launched by a D-Bus daemon on demand.  Once they are
+started by D-Bus they register a service name and behave like another
+client.
+
+Note that the buses themselves provide the @org.freedesktop.DBus@ service,
+and provide some features through it.
+
+h3(#def-obj-path). Object path
+
+An object path is the D-Bus way to specify an object _instance_ address.  A
+service can provide different object instances to the outside world, so
+that external processes can call methods on each of them.  An object path
+is an address of an instance in a very similar way that the path is an
+address of a file on a file system.  For example: 
+@/org/freedesktop/Notification@ is an object path of an object provided by
+the @org.freedesktop.Notification@ service
+
+*Beware*:  service names and object paths can, but do _not_ have to be
+related!  You'll probably encounter a lot of cases though, where the
+object path is a slashed version of the dotted service name.
+
+h3(#def-iface). Interface
+
+Classically in an object model, classes can implement interfaces. That is,
+some method definitions grouped in an interface. This is exactly what a
+D-Bus interface is as well. In D-Bus interfaces have names. These names must be
+specified on method calls.
+
+The @org.freedesktop.Notification@ service provides an object instance
+called @/org/freedesktop/Notification@.  This instance object implements an
+interface called @org.freedesktop.Notifications@.  It also provides two
+special D-Bus specific interfaces:  @org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspect@ and
+@org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties@. Again, object paths, service names,
+and interface names can be related but do not have to be.
+
+Basically the @org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspect@ has an @Introspect@ method,
+that returns XML data describing the @/org/freedesktop/Notification@ object
+interfaces. This is used heavily internally by Ruby D-Bus.
+
+h3(#def-method). Method
+
+A method is, well, a method in the classical meaning. It's a function that
+is called in the context of an object instance. Methods have typed
+parameters and return typed return values.
+
+h3(#def-signal). Signal
+
+Signals are simplified method calls that do not have a return value. They
+do have typed parameters though.
+
+h3(#def-message). Message
+
+Method calls, method returns, signals, errors: all are encoded as D-Bus
+messages sent over a bus. They are made of a packet header with source and
+destination address, a type (method call, method reply, signal) and the
+body containing the parameters (for signals and method calls) or the return
+values (for a method return message).
+
+h3(#def-sig). Signature
+
+Because D-Bus is typed and dynamic, each message comes with a signature that
+describes the types of the data that is contained within the message.  The
+signature is a string with an extremely basic language that only describes
+a data type.  You will need to have some knowledge of what a signature
+looks like if you are setting up a service.  If you are just programming a
+D-Bus client, you can live without knowing about them.

data/doc/tutorial/src/20.basic_client.page

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+---
+title: Client Usage
+inMenu: true
+---
+
+This chapter discusses basic client usage and has the following topics:
+
+# "Using the library":#loading
+# "Connecting to a bus":#connecting
+# "Performing method calls":#method-call
+## "Introspection":#method-call--introspection
+# "Calling a method asynchronously":#method-call-async
+# "Waiting for a signal":#signal-wait
+# "More about introspection":#introspection
+## "Walking the object tree":#introspection--tree
+
+h2(#loading). Using the library
+
+If you want to use the library, you have to make Ruby load it by issuing:
+
+  require 'dbus'
+
+That's all!  Now we can move on to really using it...
+
+h2(#connecting). Connecting to a bus
+
+On a typical system, two buses are running, the system bus and the session
+bus.  The system bus can be accessed by:
+
+  bus = DBus::SystemBus.instance
+
+Probably you already have guessed how to access the session bus. This
+can be done by:
+
+  bus = DBus::SessionBus.instance
+
+h2(#method-call). Performing method calls
+
+Let me continue this example using the session bus.  Let's say that I want
+to access an object of some client on the session bus.  This particular
+D-Bus client provides a service called @org.gnome.Rhythmbox@.  Let me
+access this service:
+
+  rb_service = bus.service("org.gnome.Rhythmbox")
+
+In this example I access the @org.gnome.Rhythmbox@ service, which is
+provided by the application
+"Rhythmbox":http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/.
+OK, I have a service handle now, and I know that it exports the object
+"/org/gnome/Rhythmbox/Player".  I will trivially access this remote object
+using:
+
+  rb_player = rb_service.object("/org/gnome/Rhythmbox/Player")
+
+h3(#method-call--introspection). Introspection
+
+Well, that was easy.  Let's say that I know that this particular object is
+introspectable.  In real life most of them are.  The @rb_object@ object we
+have here is just a handle of a remote object, in general they are called
+_proxy objects_, because they are the local handle of a remote object.  It
+would be nice to be able to make it have methods, and that its methods send
+a D-Bus call to remotely execute the actual method in another process. 
+Well, instating these methods for a _introspectable_ object is trivial:
+
+  rb_player.introspect
+
+And there you go.  Note that not all services or objects can be
+introspected, therefore you have to do this manually!  Let me remind you
+that objects in D-Bus have interfaces and interfaces have methods.  Let's
+now access these methods:
+
+  rb_player_iface = rb_player["org.gnome.Rhythmbox.Player"]
+  puts rb_player_iface.getPlayingUri
+
+As you can see, when you want to call a method on an instance object, you have
+to get the correct interface. It is a bit tedious, so we have the following
+shortcut that does the same thing as before:
+
+  rb_player.default_iface = "org.gnome.Rhythmbox.Player"
+  puts rb_player.getPlayingUri
+
+The @default_iface=@ call specifies the default interface that should be
+used when non existing methods are called directly on a proxy object, and
+not on one of its interfaces.
+
+Note that the bus itself has a corresponding introspectable object. You can
+access it with @bus.proxy@ method. For example, you can retrieve an array of
+exported service names of a bus like this:
+
+  bus.proxy.ListNames[0]
+
+h2(#method-call-async). Calling a method asynchronously
+
+D-Bus is _asynchronous_.  This means that you do not have to wait for a
+reply when you send a message.  When you call a remote method that takes a
+lot of time to process remotely, you don't want your application to hang,
+right?  Well the asychronousness exists for this reason.  What if you dont'
+want to wait for the return value of a method, but still you want to take
+some action when you receive it?
+
+There is a classical method to program this event-driven mechanism.  You do
+some computation, perform some method call, and at the same time you setup
+a callback that will be triggered once you receive a reply.  Then you run a
+main loop that is responsible to call the callbacks properly.  Here is how
+you do it:
+
+  rb_player.getPlayingUri do |resp|
+  	puts "The playing URI is #{resp}"
+  end
+  puts "See, I'm not waiting!"
+  loop = DBus::Main.new
+  loop << bus
+  loop.run
+
+This code will print the following:
+
+  See, I'm not waiting!
+  The playing URI is file:///music/papapingoin.mp3
+
+h2(#signal-wait). Waiting for a signal
+
+Signals are calls from the remote object to your program.  As a client, you
+set yourself up to receive a signal and handle it with a callback.  Then running
+the main loop triggers the callback.  You can register a callback handler
+as allows:
+
+  rb_player.on_signal("elapsedChanged") do |u|
+  	puts u
+  end
+
+h2(#introspection). More about introspection
+
+There are various ways to inspect a remote service.  You can simply call
+@Introspect()@ and read the XML output.  However, in this tutorial I assume
+that you want to do it using the Ruby D-Bus API.
+
+Notice that you can introspect a service, and not only objects:
+
+  rb_service = bus.service("org.gnome.Rhythmbox")
+  rb_service.introspect
+  p rb_service.root
+
+This dumps a tree-like structure that represents multiple object paths.  In
+this particular case the output is:
+
+  </: {org => {gnome => {Rhythmbox => {Player => ..fdbe625de {},Shell => ..fdbe6852e {},PlaylistManager => ..fdbe4e340 {}}></code></pre>
+
+Read this left to right:  the root node is "/", it has one child node "org",
+"org" has one child node "gnome", and "gnome" has one child node "Rhythmbox". 
+Rhythmbox has Tree child nodes "Player", "Shell" and "PlaylistManager". 
+These three last child nodes have a weird digit that means it has an object
+instance.  Such object instances are already introspected.
+
+If the prose wasn't clear, maybe the following ASCII art will help you:
+
+  /
+  	org
+  		gnome
+  			Rhythmbox
+  				Shell (with object)
+  				Player (with object)
+  				PlaylistManager (with object)
+
+h3(#introspection--tree). Walking the object tree
+
+You can have an object on any node, i.e. it is not limited to leaves.
+You can access a specific node like this:
+
+  rb_player = rb_service.root["org"]["gnome"]["Rhythmbox"]["Player"]
+  rb_player = rb_service.object("/org/gnome/Rhythmbox/Player")
+
+The difference between the two is that for the first one, @rb_service@
+needs to have been introspected.  Also the obtained @rb_player@ is already
+introspected whereas the second @rb_player@ isn't yet.

data/doc/tutorial/src/30.service.page

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+---
+title: Creating a Service
+inMenu: true
+---
+
+This chapter deals with the opposite side of the basic client usage, namely
+the creation of a D-Bus service.  It contains the following sections:
+
+# "Registering a service":#service-reg
+# "Exporting an object":#obj-export
+## "Using the exported object":#obj-export-use
+# "Emitting a signal":#signal-emit
+
+h2(#service-reg). Registering a service
+
+Now that you know how to perform D-Bus calls, and how to wait for and
+handle signals, you might want to learn how to publish some object and
+interface to provide them to the D-Bus world.  Here is how you do that.
+
+As you should already know, D-Bus clients that provide some object to be
+called remotely are services.  Here is how to allocate a name on a bus:
+
+  bus = DBus.session_bus
+  service = bus.request_service("org.ruby.service")
+
+Now this client is know to the outside world as @org.ruby.service@.
+Note that this is a request and it _can_ be denied! When it
+is denied, an exception (@DBus::NameRequestError@) is thrown.
+
+h2(#obj-export). Exporting an object
+
+Now, let's define a class that we want to export:
+
+  class Test < DBus::Object
+    # Create an interface.
+    dbus_interface "org.ruby.SampleInterface" do
+      # Create a hello method in that interface.
+      dbus_method :hello, "in name:s, in name2:s" do |name, name2|
+        puts "hello(#{name}, #{name2})"
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+As you can see, we define a @Test@ class in which we define a
+@org.ruby.SampleInterface@ interface.  In this interface, we define a
+method.  The given code block is the method's implementation.  This will be
+executed when remote programs performs a D-Bus call.  Now the annoying part:
+the actual method definition.  As you can guess the call
+
+  dbus_method :hello, "in name:s, in name2:s" do ...
+
+creates a @hello@ method that takes two parameters both of type string. 
+The _:s_ means "of type string".  Let's have a look at some other common
+parameter types:
+
+* _u_ means unsigned integer
+* _i_ means integer
+* _y_ means byte
+* _(ui)_ means a structure having a unsigned integer and a signed one.
+* _a_ means array, so that "ai" means array of integers
+** _as_ means array of string
+** _a(is)_ means array of structures, each having an integer and a string.
+
+For a full description of the available D-Bus types, please refer to the 
+"D-Bus specification":http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#message-protocol-signatures.
+
+Now that the class has been defined, we can instantiate an object
+and export it as follows:
+
+  exported_obj = Test.new("/org/ruby/MyInstance")
+  service.export(exported_obj)
+
+This piece of code above instantiates a @Test@ object with a D-Bus object
+path.  This object is reachable from the outside world after
+@service.export(exported_obj)@ is called.
+
+h3(#obj-export-use). Using the exported object
+
+Now, let's consider another program that will access our newly created service:
+
+  ruby_service = bus.service("org.ruby.service")
+  obj = ruby_service.object("/org/ruby/MyInstance")
+  obj.introspect
+  obj.default_iface = "org.ruby.SampleInterface"
+  obj.hello("giligiligiligili", "haaaaaaa")
+
+As you can see, the object we defined earlier is automatically introspectable.
+See also "Basic Client Usage":basic_client.html.
+
+h2(#signal-emit). Emitting a signal
+
+Let's add some example method so you can see how to return a value to the
+caller and let's also define another example interface that has a signal.
+
+  class Test2 < DBus::Object
+    # Create an interface
+    dbus_interface "org.ruby.SampleInterface" do
+      # Create a hello method in the interface:
+      dbus_method :hello, "in name:s, in name2:s" do |name, name2|
+        puts "hello(#{name}, #{name2})"
+      end
+      # Define a signal in the interface:
+      dbus_signal :SomethingJustHappened, "toto:s, tutu:u"
+    end
+
+    dbus_interface "org.ruby.AnotherInterface" do
+      dbus_method :ThatsALongMethodNameIThink, "in name:s, out ret:s" do |name|
+        ["So your name is #{name}"] 
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+Triggering the signal is a easy as calling a method, but then this time on
+a local (exported) object and not on a remote/proxy object:
+
+  exported_obj.SomethingJustHappened("blah", 1)
+
+Note that the @ThatsALongMethodNameIThink@ method is returning a single
+value to the caller.  Notice that you always have to return an array.  If
+you want to return multiple values, just have an array with multiple
+values.