xcb_get_geometry(3)

✨ xcb_get_geometry ✨

okay so bestie, we're in the XCB Requests chapter of the libxcb manual, and today's main character is xcb_get_geometry — aka the glow-up that tells you where a thing actually is on screen. 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

xcb_get_geometry — Get current window geometry 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <xcb/xproto.h>

🦋 Request function

xcb_get_geometry_cookie_t xcb_get_geometry(xcb_connection_t *conn,
       xcb_drawable_t drawable);

🦋 Reply datastructure

typedef struct xcb_get_geometry_reply_t {
    uint8_t      response_type;
    uint8_t      depth;
    uint16_t     sequence;
    uint32_t     length;
    xcb_window_t root;
    int16_t      x;
    int16_t      y;
    uint16_t     width;
    uint16_t     height;
    uint16_t     border_width;
    uint8_t      pad0[2];
} xcb_get_geometry_reply_t;

🦋 Reply function

xcb_get_geometry_reply_t *xcb_get_geometry_reply(xcb_connection_t *conn,
       xcb_get_geometry_cookie_t cookie, xcb_generic_error_t **e);

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💖 REQUEST ARGUMENTS 💖

• conn — your XCB connection to X11, the lil telephone line to the server 📞
• drawable — the drawable (Window or Pixmap) whose geometry we're about to go get. no cap, both count ✨

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👑 REPLY FIELDS 👑

• response_type — the type of this reply, which in this case is XCB_GET_GEOMETRY. this field is also chillin' in the xcb_generic_reply_t, and you can use it to tell replies apart from each other. it's giving name tag at a party 🎀
• sequence — the sequence number of the last request processed by the X11 server. the receipts, basically 🧾
• length — the length of the reply, in words (and a word here is 4 bytes, periodt)
• depth — the depth of the drawable (bits per pixel for the object)
• root — root window of the screen containing drawable. the ultimate ancestor, the mother of all windows 💜
• x — the X coordinate of drawable. if drawable is a window, this coordinate specifies the upper-left outer corner relative to its parent's origin. if drawable is a pixmap, the X coordinate is always 0. literally always. zero. 😌
• y — the Y coordinate of drawable. same deal: if drawable is a window, this coordinate specifies the upper-left outer corner relative to its parent's origin. if drawable is a pixmap, the Y coordinate is always 0. fr fr
• width — the width of drawable
• height — the height of drawable
• border_width — the border width (in pixels). the little fit around the edges 💅

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🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

Gets the current geometry of the specified drawable (either Window or Pixmap). that's it, that's the vibe check. obsessed. ✨

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💀 RETURN VALUE 💀

Returns an xcb_get_geometry_cookie_t. Errors have to be handled when calling the reply function xcb_get_geometry_reply.

If you want to handle errors in the event loop instead, use xcb_get_geometry_unchecked. See xcb-requests(3) for details.

ok so real talk: the cookie is not the answer, it's the promise of an answer. go get your reply, bestie 🍓

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🙈 ERRORS 🙈

• xcb_drawable_error_t — TODO: reasons?
• xcb_window_error_t — TODO: reasons?

not me leaving the reasons as a mystery 😭 the original page literally says TODO: reasons? so we're keeping that energy exactly as-is. no inventing, no guessing, iykyk.

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⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

/*
 * Displays the x and y position of the given window.
 *
 */
void my_example(xcb_connection_t *c, xcb_window_t window) {
    xcb_get_geometry_cookie_t cookie;
    xcb_get_geometry_reply_t *reply;

    cookie = xcb_get_geometry(c, window);
    /* ... do other work here if possible ... */
    if ((reply = xcb_get_geometry_reply(c, cookie, NULL))) {
        printf("This window is at %d, %d\n", reply->x, reply->y);
    }
    free(reply);
}

look at that. send the request, go do your little side quests while the server thinks, then grab the reply and print the coordinates. main character energy, truly 🔥

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

• xcb-requests(3)
• xcb-examples(3)
• xwininfo(1)

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Generated from xproto.xml. Contact xcb@lists.freedesktop.org for corrections and improvements.

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this one's part of X Version 11, shipped with libxcb 1.17.0, and it goes by xcb_get_geometry(3) 🎀🦋✨