[systemd-devel] libsystemd-bus and libdbus

[Kay Sievers]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:48 AM, Karoline Haus <karolinehaus at yahoo.de> wrote:
> I'm very interested in systemd's DBUS client library. As far as I understand
> it brings significant performance improvements over the standard libdbus
> library.
> It has actually been designed to one day talk to the kernel-based DBUS
> implementation, but can also be used to communicate with current
> non-kernel-based DBUS busses.
> My questions on this matter are the following:
> - is libsystemd-bus a straight replacement for libdbus?

No, not at all.

> E.g. can
> applications currently using libdbus be ported easily to run libsystemd-bus?

Stuff can be ported by re-writing the dbus code.

> Or are the APIs provided by libsystemd-bus totally different?

Yes, the old library interface will not be provided.

It is planned, that a bridge process connects to kdbus and speaks the
native old libs wire/socket protocol.

> - can libsystemd-bus actually be used without using systemd? E.g. is it a
> standalone library?

It's not bound to systemd, but lives in the repo. For kdbus, systemd
running will be a requirement, unless someone ports the old daemon to
it.

The lib is currently internal and not exported to anything else than
systemd. This will happen only after a while, and after kdbus is
generally available.

Kay