wl_interface(3)

💖 wl_interface — bestie, let's talk protocol objects 💖

okay so this is wl_interface(3), a page from the Library Functions Manual, and it's genuinely one of those foundational Wayland things you're gonna keep bumping into. come sit with me 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

wl_interface — the whole vibe is: it's a struct that describes a protocol object's interface. that's it, that's the girl 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <wayland-util.h>

🎀 Data Fields 🎀

• const char * name
• int version
• int method_count
• const struct wl_message * methods
• int event_count
• const struct wl_message * events

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🌈 Detailed Description 🌈

🦋 Protocol object interface 🦋

so, a wl_interface describes the API of a protocol object that's defined in the Wayland protocol specification. the protocol implementation uses a wl_interface inside its marshalling machinery to encode client requests. no cap, that's literally the job.

the name of a wl_interface is the name of the corresponding protocol interface, and version represents the version of that interface. meanwhile method_count and event_count represent the number of methods (aka requests) and events in the respective wl_message members. counting girlies, rise 🙌

for example, consider a protocol interface foo, marked as version 1, with two requests and one event.

<interface name="foo" version="1">
  <request name="a"></request>
  <request name="b"></request>
  <event name="c"></event>
</interface>

given two wl_message arrays foo_requests and foo_events, a wl_interface for foo might be:

struct wl_interface foo_interface = {
        "foo", 1,
        2, foo_requests,
        1, foo_events
};

💀 Note 💀

the server side of the protocol may define interface implementation types that incorporate the term interface in their name. take care to not confuse these server-side structs with a wl_interface variable whose name also ends in interface. for example, while the server may define a type struct wl_foo_interface, the client may define a struct wl_interface wl_foo_interface. same word, different girlies — do not mix them up, i'm begging 😭

👀 See also 👀

• wl_message
• wl_proxy
• Interfaces
• Versioning

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🔥 Field Documentation 🔥

💜 int wl_interface::event_count

number of events ✨

💜 const struct wl_message* wl_interface::events

event signatures ✨

💜 int wl_interface::method_count

number of methods (requests) ✨

💜 const struct wl_message* wl_interface::methods

method (request) signatures ✨

💜 const char* wl_interface::name

interface name ✨

💜 int wl_interface::version

interface version ✨

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👑 Author 👑

generated automatically by Doxygen for Wayland from the source code. so nobody hand-wrote this one, it's a robot's magnum opus 🤖💅

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this one's from Wayland, Version 1.26.0 — go forth and marshal your requests, ily, mwah 💖🦋🎀