GDK 3 Reference Manual: Properties and Atoms

## Properties and Atoms Properties and Atoms — Functions to manipulate properties on windows |

## Functions

#define | GDK_ATOM_TO_POINTER()
#define | GDK_POINTER_TO_ATOM()
gint | gdk_text_property_to_utf8_list_for_display ()
gchar * | gdk_utf8_to_string_target ()
GdkAtom | gdk_atom_intern ()
GdkAtom | gdk_atom_intern_static_string ()
gchar * | gdk_atom_name ()
gboolean | gdk_property_get ()
void | gdk_property_change ()
void | gdk_property_delete ()

## Types and Values

| GdkAtom
#define | GDK_NONE
enum | GdkPropMode

## Includes

    #include <gdk/gdk.h>

## Description

Each window under X can have any number of associated properties attached to it. Properties are arbitrary chunks of data identified by atoms. (An atom is a numeric index into a string table on the X server. They are used to transfer strings efficiently between clients without having to transfer the entire string.) A property has an associated type, which is also identified using an atom.

A property has an associated format, an integer describing how many bits are in each unit of data inside the property. It must be 8, 16, or 32. When data is transferred between the server and client, if they are of different endianesses it will be byteswapped as necessary according to the format of the property. Note that on the client side, properties of format 32 will be stored with one unit per long, even if a long integer has more than 32 bits on the platform. (This decision was apparently made for Xlib to maintain compatibility with programs that assumed longs were 32 bits, at the expense of programs that knew better.)

The functions in this section are used to add, remove and change properties on windows, to convert atoms to and from strings and to manipulate some types of data commonly stored in X window properties.

## Functions

### GDK_ATOM_TO_POINTER()

    #define GDK_ATOM_TO_POINTER(atom) (atom)

Converts a GdkAtom into a pointer type.

#### Parameters

atom | a GdkAtom. |

### GDK_POINTER_TO_ATOM()

    #define GDK_POINTER_TO_ATOM(ptr)  ((GdkAtom)(ptr))

Extracts a GdkAtom from a pointer. The GdkAtom must have been stored in the pointer with `GDK_ATOM_TO_POINTER()`.

#### Parameters

ptr | a pointer containing a GdkAtom. |

### gdk_text_property_to_utf8_list_for_display ()

    gint
    gdk_text_property_to_utf8_list_for_display
                                   (GdkDisplay *display,
                                    GdkAtom encoding,
                                    gint format,
                                    const guchar *text,
                                    gint length,
                                    gchar ***list);

Converts a text property in the given encoding to a list of UTF-8 strings.

#### Parameters

display | a GdkDisplay |
encoding | an atom representing the encoding of the text |
format | the format of the property |
text | the text to convert. | [array length=length]
length | the length of `text` , in bytes |
list | location to store the list of strings or `NULL`. The list should be freed with `g_strfreev()`. | [out][array zero-terminated=1]

#### Returns

the number of strings in the resulting list

Since 2.2

### gdk_utf8_to_string_target ()

    gchar *
    gdk_utf8_to_string_target (const gchar *str);

Converts an UTF-8 string into the best possible representation as a STRING. The representation of characters not in STRING is not specified; it may be as pseudo-escape sequences \x{ABCD}, or it may be in some other form of approximation.

#### Parameters

str | a UTF-8 string |

#### Returns

the newly-allocated string, or `NULL` if the conversion failed. (It should not fail for any properly formed UTF-8 string unless system limits like memory or file descriptors are exceeded.)

### gdk_atom_intern ()

    GdkAtom
    gdk_atom_intern (const gchar *atom_name,
                     gboolean only_if_exists);

Finds or creates an atom corresponding to a given string.

#### Parameters

atom_name | a string. |
only_if_exists | if `TRUE`, GDK is allowed to not create a new atom, but just return `GDK_NONE` if the requested atom doesn't already exists. Currently, the flag is ignored, since checking the existance of an atom is as expensive as creating it. |

#### Returns

the atom corresponding to `atom_name` .

[transfer none]

### gdk_atom_intern_static_string ()

    GdkAtom
    gdk_atom_intern_static_string (const gchar *atom_name);

Finds or creates an atom corresponding to a given string.

Note that this function is identical to `gdk_atom_intern()` except that if a new GdkAtom is created the string itself is used rather than a copy. This saves memory, but can only be used if the string will always exist. It can be used with statically allocated strings in the main program, but not with statically allocated memory in dynamically loaded modules, if you expect to ever unload the module again (e.g. do not use this function in GTK+ theme engines).

#### Parameters

atom_name | a static string |

#### Returns

the atom corresponding to `atom_name` .

[transfer none]

Since 2.10

### gdk_atom_name ()

    gchar *
    gdk_atom_name (GdkAtom atom);

Determines the string corresponding to an atom.

#### Parameters

atom | a GdkAtom. |

#### Returns

a newly-allocated string containing the string corresponding to `atom` . When you are done with the return value, you should free it using `g_free()`.

### gdk_property_get ()

    gboolean
    gdk_property_get (GdkWindow *window,
                      GdkAtom property,
                      GdkAtom type,
                      gulong offset,
                      gulong length,
                      gint pdelete,
                      GdkAtom *actual_property_type,
                      gint *actual_format,
                      gint *actual_length,
                      guchar **data);

Retrieves a portion of the contents of a property. If the property does not exist, then the function returns `FALSE`, and `GDK_NONE` will be stored in `actual_property_type` .

The `XGetWindowProperty()` function that `gdk_property_get()` uses has a very confusing and complicated set of semantics. Unfortunately, `gdk_property_get()` makes the situation worse instead of better (the semantics should be considered undefined), and also prints warnings to stderr in cases where it should return a useful error to the program. You are advised to use `XGetWindowProperty()` directly until a replacement function for `gdk_property_get()` is provided.

#### Parameters

window | a GdkWindow |
property | the property to retrieve |
type | the desired property type, or `GDK_NONE`, if any type of data is acceptable. If this does not match the actual type, then `actual_format` and `actual_length` will be filled in, a warning will be printed to stderr and no data will be returned. |
offset | the offset into the property at which to begin retrieving data, in 4 byte units. |
length | the length of the data to retrieve in bytes. Data is considered to be retrieved in 4 byte chunks, so `length` will be rounded up to the next highest 4 byte boundary (so be careful not to pass a value that might overflow when rounded up). |
pdelete | if `TRUE`, delete the property after retrieving the data. |
actual_property_type | location to store the actual type of the property. | [out][transfer none]
actual_format | location to store the actual return format of the data; either 8, 16 or 32 bits. | [out]
actual_length | location to store the length of the retrieved data, in bytes. Data returned in the 32 bit format is stored in a long variable, so the actual number of 32 bit elements should be be calculated via `actual_length` / sizeof(glong) to ensure portability to 64 bit systems. |
data | location to store a pointer to the data. The retrieved data should be freed with `g_free()` when you are finished using it. | [out][array length=actual_length][transfer full]

#### Returns

`TRUE` if data was successfully received and stored in `data` , otherwise `FALSE`.

### gdk_property_change ()

    void
    gdk_property_change (GdkWindow *window,
                         GdkAtom property,
                         GdkAtom type,
                         gint format,
                         GdkPropMode mode,
                         const guchar *data,
                         gint nelements);

Changes the contents of a property on a window.

#### Parameters

window | a GdkWindow |
property | the property to change |
type | the new type for the property. If `mode` is `GDK_PROP_MODE_PREPEND` or `GDK_PROP_MODE_APPEND`, then this must match the existing type or an error will occur. |
format | the new format for the property. If `mode` is `GDK_PROP_MODE_PREPEND` or `GDK_PROP_MODE_APPEND`, then this must match the existing format or an error will occur. |
mode | a value describing how the new data is to be combined with the current data. |
data | the data (a `guchar *` `gushort *`, or `gulong *`, depending on `format` ), cast to a `guchar *`. |
nelements | the number of elements of size determined by the format, contained in `data` . |

### gdk_property_delete ()

    void
    gdk_property_delete (GdkWindow *window,
                         GdkAtom property);

Deletes a property from a window.

#### Parameters

window | a GdkWindow |
property | the property to delete |

## Types and Values

### GdkAtom

    typedef struct _GdkAtom GdkAtom;

An opaque type representing a string as an index into a table of strings on the X server.

### GDK_NONE

    #define GDK_NONE            _GDK_MAKE_ATOM (0)

A null value for GdkAtom, used in a similar way as `None` in the Xlib API.

### enum GdkPropMode

Describes how existing data is combined with new data when using `gdk_property_change()`.

#### Members

GDK_PROP_MODE_REPLACE | the new data replaces the existing data. |
GDK_PROP_MODE_PREPEND | the new data is prepended to the existing data. |
GDK_PROP_MODE_APPEND | the new data is appended to the existing data. |