Re: gvfs-client

[Christian Kellner <gicmo gnome org>]

Hey Jeff,


> I'd like to write a client without UI to upload/download files
> automatically on the webdav servers.
See http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gvfs/tree/programs/gvfs-save.c, http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gvfs/tree/programs/gvfs-cat.c 
 and http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gvfs/tree/programs/gvfs-copy.c for  
simple programs that kinda seems to do what you want, if I understood  
you correctly.


> So I'd like to know how to communicate with gvfsd daemon.
As said before the client interface is gio (part of glib). The use of  
gvfs for remote location is totally transparent. Documentation is here http://library.gnome.org/devel/gio/stable/ 
 (See http://library.gnome.org/devel/gio/stable/ch01.html for an  
architecture overview and how gvfs and gio work together)


> Nautilus looks too complicated, so I hope there's a more simple one.
gvfs-save, gvfs-cat and gvfs-copy are pretty simple; save and cat work  
with data streams you get/put and copy only with files. One thing  
notably that is missing in all examples is the mounting of the remote  
destination. If you are only dealing with HTTP is no problem since  
that will be auto-mounted on demand. In case of webdav, it isn't. So  
if you don't have an existing mount of the remote webdav share and you  
try to transfer data from/to it you will receive and GIO error telling  
you that the location isn't mounted yet. Look at programs/gvfs-mount.c  
for a way how to do the mount then.

One thing though: I am not 100% sure what you plan exactly is, but if  
all you want is http/webdav you might wanna consider using libsoup  
directly instead of gio/gvfs ; it is the http library the http/webdav  
backend is using. Http (and sadly enough also webdav) and file system  
abstractions often don't go so well together and we make a lot of  
background assumptions and also there are some problems here and there.
On the other hand if you are doing simple stuff it might just be good  
enough.

Cheers,
Christian