Class Action

parameter must be the correct type of parameter for the action (ie: the parameter type given at construction time). If the parameter type was %NULL then parameter must also be %NULL.

If the parameter GVariant is floating, it is consumed.

Whenever the source_property is changed the target_property is updated using the same value. For instance:

  g_object_bind_property (action, "active", widget, "sensitive", 0);

Will result in the "sensitive" property of the widget #GObject instance to be updated with the same value of the "active" property of the action #GObject instance.

If flags contains %G_BINDING_BIDIRECTIONAL then the binding will be mutual: if target_property on target changes then the source_property on source will be updated as well.

The binding will automatically be removed when either the source or the target instances are finalized. To remove the binding without affecting the source and the target you can just call g_object_unref() on the returned #GBinding instance.

Removing the binding by calling g_object_unref() on it must only be done if the binding, source and target are only used from a single thread and it is clear that both source and target outlive the binding. Especially it is not safe to rely on this if the binding, source or target can be finalized from different threads. Keep another reference to the binding and use g_binding_unbind() instead to be on the safe side.

A #GObject can have multiple bindings.

This function is the language bindings friendly version of g_object_bind_property_full(), using #GClosures instead of function pointers.

The action must be stateful and value must be of the correct type. See g_action_get_state_type().

This call merely requests a change. The action may refuse to change its state or may change its state to something other than value. See g_action_get_state_hint().

If the value GVariant is floating, it is consumed.

This is necessary for accessors that modify multiple properties to prevent premature notification while the object is still being modified.

An action must be enabled in order to be activated or in order to have its state changed from outside callers.

When activating the action using g_action_activate(), the #GVariant given to that function must be of the type returned by this function.

In the case that this function returns %NULL, you must not give any #GVariant, but %NULL instead.

The value can be:

• an empty #GValue initialized by %G_VALUE_INIT, which will be automatically initialized with the expected type of the property (since GLib 2.60)
• a #GValue initialized with the expected type of the property
• a #GValue initialized with a type to which the expected type of the property can be transformed

In general, a copy is made of the property contents and the caller is responsible for freeing the memory by calling g_value_unset().

Note that g_object_get_property() is really intended for language bindings, g_object_get() is much more convenient for C programming.

If the action is not stateful then %NULL will be returned. If the action is stateful then the type of the return value is the type given by g_action_get_state_type().

The return value (if non-%NULL) should be freed with g_variant_unref() when it is no longer required.

If %NULL is returned it either means that the action is not stateful or that there is no hint about the valid range of values for the state of the action.

If a #GVariant array is returned then each item in the array is a possible value for the state. If a #GVariant pair (ie: two-tuple) is returned then the tuple specifies the inclusive lower and upper bound of valid values for the state.

In any case, the information is merely a hint. It may be possible to have a state value outside of the hinted range and setting a value within the range may fail.

The return value (if non-%NULL) should be freed with g_variant_unref() when it is no longer required.

If the action is stateful (e.g. created with g_simple_action_new_stateful()) then this function returns the #GVariantType of the state. This is the type of the initial value given as the state. All calls to g_action_change_state() must give a #GVariant of this type and g_action_get_state() will return a #GVariant of the same type.

If the action is not stateful (e.g. created with g_simple_action_new()) then this function will return %NULL. In that case, g_action_get_state() will return %NULL and you must not call g_action_change_state().

When possible, eg. when signaling a property change from within the class that registered the property, you should use g_object_notify_by_pspec() instead.

Note that emission of the notify signal may be blocked with g_object_freeze_notify(). In this case, the signal emissions are queued and will be emitted (in reverse order) when g_object_thaw_notify() is called.

This function omits the property name lookup, hence it is faster than g_object_notify().

One way to avoid using g_object_notify() from within the class that registered the properties, and using g_object_notify_by_pspec() instead, is to store the GParamSpec used with g_object_class_install_property() inside a static array, e.g.:

  enum
  {
    PROP_0,
    PROP_FOO,
    PROP_LAST
  };

  static GParamSpec *properties[PROP_LAST];

  static void
  my_object_class_init (MyObjectClass *klass)
  {
    properties[PROP_FOO] = g_param_spec_int ("foo", "Foo", "The foo",
                                             0, 100,
                                             50,
                                             G_PARAM_READWRITE);
    g_object_class_install_property (gobject_class,
                                     PROP_FOO,
                                     properties[PROP_FOO]);
  }

and then notify a change on the "foo" property with:

  g_object_notify_by_pspec (self, properties[PROP_FOO]);

Since GLib 2.56, if GLIB_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED is 2.56 or greater, the type of object will be propagated to the return type (using the GCC typeof() extension), so any casting the caller needs to do on the return type must be explicit.

In other words, if the object is floating, then this call "assumes ownership" of the floating reference, converting it to a normal reference by clearing the floating flag while leaving the reference count unchanged. If the object is not floating, then this call adds a new normal reference increasing the reference count by one.

Since GLib 2.56, the type of object will be propagated to the return type under the same conditions as for g_object_ref().

This function should only be called from object system implementations.

If the object already had an association with that name, the old association will be destroyed.

Internally, the key is converted to a #GQuark using g_quark_from_string(). This means a copy of key is kept permanently (even after object has been finalized) — so it is recommended to only use a small, bounded set of values for key in your program, to avoid the #GQuark storage growing unbounded.

void
object_add_to_user_list (GObject     *object,
                         const gchar *new_string)
{
  // the quark, naming the object data
  GQuark quark_string_list = g_quark_from_static_string ("my-string-list");
  // retrieve the old string list
  GList *list = g_object_steal_qdata (object, quark_string_list);

  // prepend new string
  list = g_list_prepend (list, g_strdup (new_string));
  // this changed 'list', so we need to set it again
  g_object_set_qdata_full (object, quark_string_list, list, free_string_list);
}
static void
free_string_list (gpointer data)
{
  GList *node, *list = data;

  for (node = list; node; node = node->next)
    g_free (node->data);
  g_list_free (list);
}

Using g_object_get_qdata() in the above example, instead of g_object_steal_qdata() would have left the destroy function set, and thus the partial string list would have been freed upon g_object_set_qdata_full().

Duplicate notifications for each property are squashed so that at most one #GObject::notify signal is emitted for each property, in the reverse order in which they have been queued.

It is an error to call this function when the freeze count is zero.

If the pointer to the #GObject may be reused in future (for example, if it is an instance variable of another object), it is recommended to clear the pointer to %NULL rather than retain a dangling pointer to a potentially invalid #GObject instance. Use g_clear_object() for this.