DBusSharp

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ndesk-dbus is a C# implementation of D-Bus. It's often referred to as dbus-sharp, or "managed D-Bus" to avoid confusion with existing bindings (which wrap libdbus).

D-Bus is an inter-process communication framework that lets applications interface with the system event bus as well as allowing them to talk to one another in a peer-to-peer configuration.

1 Status
2 Cross platform support
- 2.1 Supported platforms
- 2.2 Soon to be supported
3 Users
4 Documentation
5 Contact
6 Reporting bugs
7 Download
- 7.1 Development
8 Exposition

[edit] Status

This software is under development but is already used by a wide range of applications for tasks as simple as maintaining a single instance of the GUI to whole instant messaging frameworks and hardware detection APIs.

It provides a tested, high-performance bridge to and from all systems that are exposed via D-Bus, regardless of programming language, UI toolkit or license. The source code is MIT X11 licensed (Free Software/Open Source), allowing integration into other projects with very few restrictions.

The code is a clean-room implementation based on the D-Bus Specification Version 0.11 and study of the wire protocol of existing tools.

It aims for compatibility with Mono and Microsoft .NET frameworks supporting the 2.0 profile. Backward compatibility with 1.0 will not be a consideration. Ongoing work to ensure CLS compliance means that managed D-Bus can be used by any language that can target the CLR.

[edit] Cross platform support

[edit] Supported platforms

A standard build of managed D-Bus will work across a wide range of platforms:

x86
64-bit (eg. AMD64)
Big endian (eg. PPC)
ARM (eg. Nokia 770)
Mono 1.1.13 or newer
GNU/Linux
FreeBSD
Mac OS X
Microsoft Windows / .NET runtime (in the 0.5 development branch)

[edit] Soon to be supported

MIPS (untested) (eg. wifi routers) -- pending JIT fix

[edit] Users

This is a list of applications known to make use of managed D-Bus:

NDesk component object model (NParts etc.)
telepathy-sharp
Tapioca VoIP and IM application development framework (tapioca-sharp)
Landell VoIP and IM client using Gtk#
Gnome NetworkManager binding
Gnome Power Manager binding
Banshee provides and uses a media player API, and uses Gnome Power Manager, Gnome NetworkManager, Helix, notify-sharp, org.gnome.SettingsDaemon
Helix D-Bus for remote control of the media stream
hal-sharp is provides access to HAL, the Hardware Abstraction Layer
NotifySharp provides a client implementation for Desktop Notifications and works as a libnotify client replacement
F-Spot personal photo management application, for single-instance detection [1]
Tomboy simple note taking application, for remote control and single-instance detection
dcsharp file sharing client using the Direct Connect protocol, for notifications, single instance and remote control
LAT LDAP Administration Tool
VMX Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, GNOME SVN(?)
Capuchin (formerly NewStuffManager), a plugin update/download service
last-exit, a music player for Last.fm
Muine, a music player for GNOME
The Fuzz, process security manager with GUI
GShare, file sharing utility
Chatter (Telepathy GnomeUI) VoIP and IM client using Gtk#
Babuine TimeTracker
gnome-keyring-sharp GNOME Keyring implementation, to get the keyring socket address
eIDconfig-belgium configuration toolkit for the Belgian eID middleware
PodSleuth iPod model information discovery/export tool, using hal-sharp
Banter collaboration client (Telepathy)
circ IRC client
Beagle xesam-adapter desktop search API
D-Bus Explorer
GNOME Do
Nemo file manager, for Tracker
Blam RSS aggregator
MonoTorrent / Monsoon BitTorrent client

[edit] Documentation

See the NDesk.DBus documentation for a brief developers guide.

[edit] Contact

Support can be found on the #managed-dbus IRC channel on irc.gnome.org

[edit] Reporting bugs

Bugs are now tracked on the NDesk D-Bus Launchpad bug tracker.

If you have sent bug reports or feature requests directly to the authors in the past, please create a new entry in the tracker to ensure the issues are dealt with.

[edit] Download

See the managed D-Bus release archive.

[edit] Development

See the development roadmap for a detailed list of remaining tasks.

git-clone git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp

The dbus-sharp API is now fairly stable stable. It's best to install a released version and depend on it from your application rather than bundling the sources directly as has been done in the past.

There is also a module which provides GLib integration as an optional extra:

git-clone git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp-glib

[edit] Exposition

GNOME Boston Summit 2006, MIT Media Lab, Aaron Bockover
GUADEC 2007 Birmingham, UCE Conservatoire, Alp Toker (view slides)

Retrieved from "http://ndesk.org/DBusSharp"

-dbus-sharp is a C# implementation of [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus D-Bus]. It's often referred to as "managed D-Bus" to avoid confusion with existing bindings (which wrap libdbus).
+[http://www.ndesk.org/archive/dbus-sharp/ndesk-dbus-0.6.0.tar.gz http://www.ndesk.org/images/step1.png] [http://www.ndesk.org/archive/dbus-sharp/ndesk-dbus-glib-0.4.1.tar.gz http://www.ndesk.org/images/step2.png]
+ndesk-dbus is a C# implementation of [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus D-Bus]. It's often referred to as dbus-sharp, or "managed D-Bus" to avoid confusion with existing bindings (which wrap libdbus).
 D-Bus is an inter-process communication framework that lets applications
 [[Image:ManagedDBus.png|thumbnail]]
-This software is currently at an early stage of development and not
+This software is under development but is already used by a wide range of applications for tasks as simple as maintaining a single instance of the GUI to whole instant messaging frameworks and hardware detection APIs.
-recommended for use in stable applications.
-However it is hoped that it will soon provide a tested, high-performance
+It provides a tested, high-performance
 bridge to and from all systems that are exposed via D-Bus, regardless of
-programming language, UI toolkit or license.
+programming language, UI toolkit or license. The source code is MIT X11 licensed (Free Software/Open Source), allowing integration into other projects with very few restrictions.
 The code is a clean-room implementation based on the [http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html D-Bus Specification]
 It aims for compatibility with [http://www.mono-project.com/ Mono] and Microsoft .NET frameworks
 supporting the 2.0 profile. Backward compatibility with 1.0 will not be
-a consideration.
+a consideration. Ongoing work to ensure CLS compliance means that managed D-Bus can be used by any language that can target the CLR.
 <!--
 Note that the UNIX transport requires changes made to the runtime and class libraries that are only available in Mono svn as of August 21 '06. See [http://bugzilla.ximian.com/show_bug.cgi?id=79084 Mono bug #79084] and svn revisions r63823 and r63824. These modifications add support for the UNIX domain socket abstract namespace. [http://www.go-mono.com/archive/1.1.17 Mono 1.1.17] is the first release to include the required fixes.
 -->
-=== Current work ===
+=== Cross platform support ===
-Now completed:
+==== Supported platforms ====
-* Introspection support (export only)
+A standard build of managed D-Bus will work across a wide range of platforms:
-* 64-bit (AMD64)
-* Big endian (PPC)
-* Old (pre-1.1.17) Mono compatibility
-=== Tasks remaining ===
+* x86
+* 64-bit (eg. AMD64)
+* Big endian (eg. PPC)
+* ARM (eg. Nokia 770)
+* Mono 1.1.13 or newer
+* GNU/Linux
+* FreeBSD
+* Mac OS X
+* Microsoft Windows / .NET runtime (in the 0.5 development branch)
-Updated Sunday September '22 2006
+==== Soon to be supported ====
-==== Tasks towards 0.1 ====
+<!--
+* Solaris (in progress: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=370081 -- external patch available to make it work in the meantime)
+-->
+* MIPS (untested) (eg. wifi routers) -- pending JIT fix
-* Done: Send Errors for Exceptions
+=== Users ===
-* API cleanup
-==== Tasks towards a pre-1.0 preview release ====
+This is a list of applications known to make use of managed D-Bus:
-* Marshal ObjectPath etc. as a live instance
+* [http://www.ndesk.org/ NDesk] component object model (NParts etc.)
-* Fix remaining obscure object mapping and transport bugs
+* [http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/TelepathySharp telepathy-sharp]
-* Finalize public API with input from .NET remoting and D-Bus experts
+* [http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/ Tapioca] VoIP and IM application development framework ([http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/TapiocaSharp tapioca-sharp])
-* Run final API through fxcop, gendarme etc.
+* [http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Landell Landell] VoIP and IM client using [http://gtk-sharp.sourceforge.net/ Gtk#]
-* Complete GLib main loop integration API
+* [http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/ Gnome NetworkManager] binding
-* Better checks for signature suitability
+* [http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-power-manager/ Gnome Power Manager] binding
+* [http://www.banshee-project.org/ Banshee] provides and uses a media player API, and uses [http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-power-manager/ Gnome Power Manager], [http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/ Gnome NetworkManager], Helix, notify-sharp, org.gnome.SettingsDaemon
+* [http://svn.banshee-project.org/helix-dbus-server/ Helix D-Bus] for remote control of the media stream
+* hal-sharp is provides access to [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal HAL], the Hardware Abstraction Layer
+* [[NotifySharp]] provides a client implementation for [http://trac.galago-project.org/wiki/DesktopNotifications Desktop Notifications] and works as a libnotify client replacement
+* [http://www.f-spot.org/ F-Spot] personal photo management application, for single-instance detection [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=361091]
+* [http://www.beatniksoftware.com/tomboy/ Tomboy] simple note taking application, for remote control and single-instance detection
+* [http://mono.dcsharp.com/ dcsharp] file sharing client using the Direct Connect protocol, for notifications, single instance and remote control
+* [http://dev.mmgsecurity.com/projects/lat/ LAT] LDAP Administration Tool
+* [http://www.snorp.net/log/2006/12/08/im-in-ur-virtual-machines-managing-them/ VMX Manager], Virtual Machine Manager, GNOME SVN(?)
+* [http://capuchin.k-d-w.org/ Capuchin] (formerly NewStuffManager), a plugin update/download service
+* [http://folks.o-hand.com/iain/last-exit/ last-exit], a music player for Last.fm
+* [http://muine-player.org/ Muine], a music player for GNOME
+* [http://www.chrishowie.com/2007/01/10/the-fuzz/ The Fuzz], process security manager with GUI
+* [http://yimports.com/~cpinto/projects/gnome/gshare/ GShare], file sharing utility
+* [http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/GnomeUI Chatter (Telepathy GnomeUI)] VoIP and IM client using [http://gtk-sharp.sourceforge.net/ Gtk#]
+* [https://forgesvn1.novell.com/viewsvn/babuines/trunk/Babuine-FoundationComponents/TimeTracker/ Babuine TimeTracker]
+* [http://svn.myrealbox.com/viewcvs/trunk/gnome-keyring-sharp gnome-keyring-sharp] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Keyring GNOME Keyring] implementation, to get the keyring socket address
+* [http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/EID-belgium eIDconfig-belgium] configuration toolkit for the Belgian eID middleware
+* [http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/podsleuth PodSleuth] iPod model information discovery/export tool, using hal-sharp
+* [http://live.gnome.org/Banter Banter] collaboration client (Telepathy)
+* [http://netherilshade.free.fr/circ/ circ] IRC client
+* [http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/beagle/trunk/beagle-xesam/ Beagle xesam-adapter] desktop search API
+* [[DBusExplorer|D-Bus Explorer]]
+* [https://edge.launchpad.net/gc GNOME Do]
+* [http://www.iola.dk/nemo/ Nemo] file manager, for [http://www.gnome.org/projects/tracker/ Tracker]
+* [http://www.cmartin.tk/blam.html Blam] RSS aggregator
+* [http://monotorrent.com/ MonoTorrent / Monsoon] BitTorrent client
-==== Tasks towards a 1.0 release ====
+=== Documentation ===
-* out parameter support
+See the [[DBus_Documentation|NDesk.DBus documentation]] for a brief developers guide.
-* Introspection tree
-* Full thread safety (dbus-sharp was designed for thread safety but some strategic locks have still to be added and it would be better to get this right than to rush it)
-* Full Exception support (maybe including some amount of stack trace based on contract, if this is desirable)
-* Non-native endian message support
-* Generic List support
-* Build system, versioning and packaging considerations
-* Old Mono compatibility layer to replace broken unix sockets on pre-1.1.17 releases
-* Optimize low hanging fruit like marshaling arrays and collections of primitives
-* Optimize marshaling of entirely blittable structures
-* Built-in non-unix transports (tcp etc.)
-* Dynamic type casting and interface implementation
-* More?
-==== Tasks for 1.1 ====
+=== Contact ===
-* Optimize marshaling of structures which are partially blittable
+Support can be found on the #managed-dbus IRC channel on irc.gnome.org
-* Clever optimizations (scatter gather IO etc.)
-* Customizable object mapping based on constraints and a regular-expression style mapper
-==== 1.1 and beyond ====
+=== Reporting bugs ===
-* Complete message filter engine
+Bugs are now tracked on the [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ndesk-dbus NDesk D-Bus Launchpad bug tracker].
-* Daemon
-* Integration with other message bus systems
-* [http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=IronPython IronPython] API to implement current dbus-python API with managed D-Bus
-* [[Cilc|cilc]] GObject interface and proxy generator
-=== Protocol Extensions ===
+If you have sent bug reports or feature requests directly to the authors in the past, please create a new entry in the tracker to ensure the issues are dealt with.
-dbus-sharp embraces the D-Bus specification and extends it with certain optional additions to the D-Bus protocol. These are ifdef'd:
+=== Download ===
-==== PROTO_REPLY_SIGNATURE ====
+See the [http://www.ndesk.org/archive/ndesk-dbus/ managed D-Bus release archive].
-The signature of the MethodReply expected by a MethodCall. This is implemented as a header FieldCode:
+==== Development ====
-FieldCode.ReplySignature = FieldCode.Signature + 1 = 9
+See the [[DBusSharp/Roadmap|development roadmap]] for a detailed list of remaining tasks.
-It has the D-Bus type DType.Signature
+git-clone [http://gitweb.ndesk.org/?p=dbus-sharp git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp]
-Is enabled by default without breaking existing libdbus consumers.
+The dbus-sharp API is now fairly stable stable. It's best to install a released version and depend on it from your application rather than bundling the sources directly as has been done in the past.
-'''Note:''' This may soon be renamed to FieldCode.RequestSignature to mirror FieldCode.ReplySerial.
+There is also a module which provides GLib integration as an optional extra:
-The defined value will always be 9 and other implementations should consider this field code reserved.
+git-clone [http://gitweb.ndesk.org/?p=dbus-sharp-glib git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp-glib]
-==== PROTO_TYPE_SINGLE ====
+=== Exposition ===
-A single precision floating point type defined by the type code 'f'.
-Will not work with current libdbus dbus-daemon. Not currently usable.
-=== Users ===
-Even though this software is ''not yet released'', developers of a few applications have decided to ignore the warnings and (correctly) bundle it or depend on it directly as a moving target. This kind of arrangement can work if you're on good terms with someone who can maintain dbus-sharp, but ideally you should wait for a stable release.
-* [http://www.ndesk.org/ NDesk] component object model (NParts etc.)
-* [http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/TelepathySharp telepathy-sharp]
-* [http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/ Tapioca] VoIP and IM application development framework
-* [http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Landell Landell] VoIP and IM client using [http://gtk-sharp.sourceforge.net/ Gtk#]
-* [http://www.banshee-project.org/ Banshee] provides and uses a media player API, and uses Gnome Power Manager, Gnome NetworkManager, notify-sharp
-* hal-sharp is provides access to [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal HAL], the Hardware Abstraction Layer
-* [[NotifySharp]] provides a client implementation for [http://trac.galago-project.org/wiki/DesktopNotifications Desktop Notifications] and works as a libnotify client replacement
-=== Download ===
-git-clone [http://git.ndesk.org/?p=dbus-sharp git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp]
-There are no releases yet, and the API is not stable. In particular, please don't check this into your cvs/svn repository or bundle it with your program. And don't even think about installing it in the user's GAC or packaging it for your distribution yet.
-There is also a module which provides GLib integration as an optional extra:
-git-clone [http://git.ndesk.org/?p=dbus-sharp-glib git://git.ndesk.org/pub/scm/dbus-sharp-glib]
+* [http://live.gnome.org/Boston2006 GNOME Boston Summit 2006], MIT Media Lab, Aaron Bockover
+* [http://www.guadec.org/node/555 GUADEC 2007] Birmingham, UCE Conservatoire, Alp Toker ([http://www.atoker.com/dbus/managed-dbus-guadec07.pdf view slides])