GnomeVFS - Filesystem Abstraction library

for GnomeVFS 2.16.3

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".

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

Seth Nickell

Christophe Fergeau

Christian Neumair