Miscellaneous Utility Functions

g_get_prgname ()

gchar*      g_get_prgname                   (void);

Gets the name of the program. (If you are using GDK or GTK+ the program name is set in gdk_init(), which is called by gtk_init(). The program name is found by taking the last component of argv[0].)

g_set_prgname ()

void        g_set_prgname                   (const gchar *prgname);

Sets the name of the program.

g_getenv ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_getenv              (const gchar *variable);

Returns an environment variable.

g_get_user_name ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_get_user_name       (void);

Gets the user name of the current user.

g_get_real_name ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_get_real_name       (void);

Gets the real name of the user. This usually comes from the user's entry in the passwd file.

g_get_home_dir ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_get_home_dir        (void);

Gets the current user's home directory.

g_get_tmp_dir ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_get_tmp_dir         (void);

Gets the directory to use for temporary files. This is found from inspecting the environment variables TMPDIR, TMP, and TEMP in that order. If none of those are defined "/tmp" is returned on UNIX and "C:\" on Windows.

g_get_current_dir ()

gchar*      g_get_current_dir               (void);

Gets the current directory. The returned string should be freed when no longer needed.

g_basename ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_basename            (const gchar *file_name);

This function is deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of GLib. Use g_path_get_basename() instead.

Gets the name of the file without any leading directory components. It returns a pointer into the given file name string.

g_dirname

#define     g_dirname

This function is deprecated and will be removed in the next major release of GLib. Use g_path_get_dirname() instead.

Gets the directory components of a file name. If the file name has no directory components "." is returned. The returned string should be freed when no longer needed.

g_path_is_absolute ()

gboolean    g_path_is_absolute              (const gchar *file_name);

Returns TRUE if the given file_name is an absolute file name, i.e. it contains a full path from the root directory such as '/usr/local' on UNIX or 'C:\windows' on Windows systems.

g_path_skip_root ()

G_CONST_RETURN gchar* g_path_skip_root      (const gchar *file_name);

Returns a pointer into file_name after the root component, i.e. after the '/' in UNIX or 'C:\' under Windows. If file_name is not an absolute path it returns NULL.

g_path_get_basename ()

gchar*      g_path_get_basename             (const gchar *file_name);

Gets the name of the file without any leading directory components. The returned string should be freed when no longer needed.

g_path_get_dirname ()

gchar*      g_path_get_dirname              (const gchar *file_name);

Gets the directory components of a file name. If the file name has no directory components "." is returned. The returned string should be freed when no longer needed.

g_build_filename ()

gchar*      g_build_filename                (const gchar *first_element,
                                             ...);

Creates a filename from a series of elements using the correct separator for filenames. This function behaves identically to g_build_path (G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S, first_element, ....).

No attempt is made to force the resulting filename to be an absolute path. If the first element is a relative path, the result will be a relative path.

g_build_path ()

gchar*      g_build_path                    (const gchar *separator,
                                             const gchar *first_element,
                                             ...);

Creates a path from a series of elements using separator as the separator between elements. At the boundary between two elements, any trailing occurrences of separator in the first element, or leading occurrences of separator in the second element are removed and exactly one copy of the separator is inserted.

g_find_program_in_path ()

gchar*      g_find_program_in_path          (const gchar *program);

Locates the first executable named program in the user's path, in the same way that execvp() would locate it. Returns an allocated string with the absolute path name, or NULL if the program is not found in the path. If program is already an absolute path, returns a copy of program if program exists and is executable, and NULL otherwise.

On Windows, if program does not have a file type suffix, tries to append the suffixes in the PATHEXT environment variable (if that doesn't exists, the suffixes .com, .exe, and .bat) in turn, and then look for the resulting file name in the same way as CreateProcess() would. This means first in the directory where the program was loaded from, then in the current directory, then in the Windows 32-bit system directory, then in the Windows directory, and finally in the directories in the PATH environment variable. If the program is found, the return value contains the full name including the type suffix.

g_bit_nth_lsf ()

gint        g_bit_nth_lsf                   (gulong mask,
                                             gint nth_bit);

Find the position of the first bit set in mask, searching from (but not including) nth_bit upwards. Bits are numbered from 0 (least significant) to 31. To start searching from the 0th bit, set nth_bit to -1.

g_bit_nth_msf ()

gint        g_bit_nth_msf                   (gulong mask,
                                             gint nth_bit);

Find the position of the first bit set in mask, searching from (but not including) nth_bit downwards. Bits are numbered from 0 (least significant) to 31. To start searching from the 31st bit, set nth_bit to 32 or -1.

g_bit_storage ()

guint       g_bit_storage                   (gulong number);

Gets the number of bits used to hold number, e.g. if number is 4, 3 bits are needed.

g_spaced_primes_closest ()

guint       g_spaced_primes_closest         (guint num);

Gets the smallest prime number from a built-in array of primes which is larger than num. This is used within GLib to calculate the optimum size of a GHashTable.

The built-in array of primes ranges from 11 to 13845163 such that each prime is approximately 1.5-2 times the previous prime.

g_atexit ()

void        g_atexit                        (GVoidFunc func);

Specifies a function to be called at normal program termination.

g_parse_debug_string ()

guint       g_parse_debug_string            (const gchar *string,
                                             const GDebugKey *keys,
                                             guint nkeys);

Parses a string containing debugging options separated by ':' into a guint containing bit flags. This is used within GDK and GTK+ to parse the debug options passed on the command line or through environment variables.

struct GDebugKey

struct GDebugKey
{
  gchar *key;
  guint	 value;
};

Associates a string with a bit flag. Used in g_parse_debug_string().

GVoidFunc ()

void        (*GVoidFunc)                    (void);

Declares a type of function which takes no arguments and has no return value. It is used to specify the type function passed to g_atexit().

GFreeFunc ()

void        (*GFreeFunc)                    (gpointer data);

Declares a type of function which takes an arbitrary data pointer argument and has no return value. It is not currently used in GLib or GTK+.

g_qsort_with_data ()

void        g_qsort_with_data               (gconstpointer pbase,
                                             gint total_elems,
                                             size_t size,
                                             GCompareDataFunc compare_func,
                                             gpointer user_data);

This is just like the standard C qsort() function, but the comparison routine accepts a user data argument.

g_nullify_pointer ()

void        g_nullify_pointer               (gpointer *nullify_location);

Set the pointer at the specified location to NULL.