Re: Writing a GVFS backend

[jf dockes org]

Mark Ellis writes:
> On Thu, 2013-05-02 at 17:44 +0200, jf dockes org wrote:
> > Bastien Nocera writes:
> >  > On Thu, 2013-05-02 at 16:46 +0200, jf dockes org wrote:
> >  > > Bastien Nocera writes:
> >  > >  > On Thu, 2013-05-02 at 12:44 +0200, jf dockes org wrote:
> >  > >  > > Hi,
> >  > >  > > 
> >  > >  > > Apologies in advance if this is a FAQ, please just point me
> >  > >  > > to the right place... The question:
> >  > >  > > 
> >  > >  > > Is it possible to write a GVFS backend out of the Gnome
> >  > >  > > source tree ?
> >  > >  > 
> >  > >  > No. The API isn't public.
> >  > > 
> >  [...]
>
> Hi JF
>
> I too was surprised to find gvfs didn't have a facility for external
> extensions. I've got round this somewhat, if you want an example of how
> it's possible, have a look at SynCE in sourceforge,
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/synce/
>
> The project is to connect to windows ce devices, and I implemented an
> out of tree gvfs module when it took over from gnomevfs. I found it
> doubly odd that gnomevfs could deal with external extensions and gvfs
> cant.
>
> The source is mostly some horrible autotools messing around which builds
> a single source file and a header against the stock gvfs "daemon" source
> files. It looks much more complicated than it is because I've tried to
> keep it backwards compatible against older versions of gvfs.
>
> I haven't needed to change anything related to the gvfs API in my own
> code for 18 months, so the interface is actually remarkable stable. To
> the gvfs devs, are there any plans to ever have a public API ? I don't
> pretend to know how complex the internals are, or what plans are afoot
> to change anything in there, but in seems a shame that you've made it so
> easy to implement new backends, but haven't exported the interface. If
> libdaemon were actually a shared library, all we would need would be a
> few header files, and job done.
>
> Ta
> Mark


Hi Mark

Thanks, I will look at SynCE. I would not have dared get into this, but
it's different if you've already done the hard part :)

Cheers,

jf