summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorTom Gundersen <teg@jklm.no>2014-01-13 17:30:51 +0100
committerTom Gundersen <teg@jklm.no>2014-01-13 18:54:19 +0100
commit6bb648a16ae4a682ad4784412af706d2e6a3e4da (patch)
tree16e7919cb609b92e879aeeab95c70ce1fc2eb4e2 /src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION
parent883b36908788361a8bb945ce884dc518da83b371 (diff)
libsystemd-bus: rename to libsystemd
Documentation was updated to refer to either 'libsystemd' or 'sd-bus' in place of libsystemd-bus.
Diffstat (limited to 'src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION')
-rw-r--r--src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION63
1 files changed, 63 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION b/src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5dffc25bb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/libsystemd/GVARIANT-SERIALIZATION
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+How we use GVariant for serializing D-Bus messages
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+We stay as close to the original dbus1 framing as possible. dbus1 has
+the following framing:
+
+ 1. A fixed header of "yyyyuu"
+ 2. Additional header fields of "a(yv)"
+ 3. Padding with NUL bytes to pad up to next 8byte boundary
+ 4. The body
+
+Note that the body is not padded at the end, the complete message
+hence might have a non-aligned size. Reading multiple messages at once
+will hence result in possibly unaligned messages in memory.
+
+The header consists of the following:
+
+ y Endianness, 'l' or 'B'
+ y Message Type
+ y Flags
+ y Protocol version, '1'
+ u Length of the body, i.e. the length of part 4 above
+ u Serial number
+
+ = 12 bytes
+
+When using GVariant we keep the basic structure in place, only
+slightly extend the header, and define protocol version '2'. The new
+header:
+
+ y Endianness, 'l' or 'B'
+ y Message Type
+ y Flags
+ y Protocol version, '2'
+ u Length of the body, i.e. the length of part 4 above
+ u Serial number
+ u Length of the additional header fields array
+
+ = 16 bytes
+
+This has the nice benefit that the beginning of the additional header
+fields array is aligned to an 8 byte boundary. Also, in dbus1
+marshalling arrays start with a length value of 32bit, which means in
+both dbus1 and gvariant marshallings the size of the header fields
+array will be at the same location between bytes 12 and 16. To
+visualize that:
+
+ 0 4 8 12 16
+ Common: | E | T | F | V | Body Length | Serial | Fields Length |
+
+ dbus1: | ... (as above) ... | Fields array ...
+
+ gvariant: | ... (as above) ... | Fields Length | Fields array ...
+
+And that's already it.
+
+Note: on kdbus only native endian messages marshalled in gvariant may
+ be sent. If a client receives a message in non-native endianness
+ or in dbus1 marshalling it shall ignore the message.
+
+Note: The GVariant "MAYBE" type is not supported, so that messages can
+ be fully converted forth and back between dbus1 and gvariant
+ representations.