GConf Manual

Havoc Pennington

Red Hat Advanced Development Labs

GConf is a system for storing configuration information, that is, key-value pairs. GConf provides a notification service so applications can be notified when a key's value is changed. GConf also allows for pluggable storage mechanisms (text files, databases, etc.); allows administrators to install default values; and allows application authors to document their configuration keys for the benefit of administrators.

This document may be distributed subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/ )

Table of Contents
Introduction to GConf
Motivation
Terms and Concepts
Namespace
GConf Data Types
Configuration Sources
Schemas
C Language Client Library
Error Handling
The GConfEngine object
The GConfValue Datatype
Accessing GConfValue
Creating/destroying a GConfValue
Reading/Writing Configuration Values
Reading
Writing
GConfClient higher-level API
A Complete Example
GConf Conventions
Namespace division
gconftool Utility Program
Schema Files
Schema File Format
Installing Schemas
Schema File DTD
Checklist/Summary
GConf Reference Documentation
GConfEngine -- a GConf "database"
GConf Core Interfaces -- Basic functions to initialize GConf and get/set values
GError -- error reporting.
GConfValue, GConfEntry, GConfMetaInfo -- A GConfValue stores a dynamically-typed value. A GConfEntry stores a key-value pair. A GConfMetaInfo stores metainformation about a key.
gconf-schema -- 
GConfChangeSet -- a set of configuration changes to be made.
GtkObject Wrapper Reference (GConfClient)
GConfClient -- GtkObject-based convenience wrapper
GConf Internal Reference
gconf-backend -- 
gconf-internals -- 
gconf-listeners -- 
gconf-locale -- 
gconf-sources --