Interface definition prerequisites: GObject Reference Manual

Interface definition prerequisites

To specify that an interface requires the presence of other interfaces when implemented, GObject introduces the concept of prerequisites: it is possible to associate a list of prerequisite types to an interface. For example, if object A wishes to implement interface I1, and if interface I1 has a prerequisite on interface I2, A has to implement both I1 and I2.

The mechanism described above is, in practice, very similar to Java's interface I1 extends interface I2. The example below shows the GObject equivalent:

/* Make the ViewerEditableLossy interface require ViewerEditable interface. */
G_DEFINE_INTERFACE (ViewerEditableLossy, viewer_editable_lossy, VIEWER_TYPE_EDITABLE);

In the G_DEFINE_INTERFACE call above, the third parameter defines the prerequisite type. This is the GType of either an interface or a class. In this case the ViewerEditable interface is a prerequisite of ViewerEditableLossy. The code below shows how an implementation can implement both interfaces and register their implementations:

static void
viewer_file_editable_lossy_compress (ViewerEditableLossy *editable)
{
  ViewerFile *self = VIEWER_FILE (editable);

  g_print ("File implementation of lossy editable interface compress method: %s.\n",
           self->filename);
}

static void
viewer_file_editable_lossy_interface_init (ViewerEditableLossyInterface *iface)
{
  iface->compress = viewer_file_editable_lossy_compress;
}

static void
viewer_file_editable_save (ViewerEditable  *editable,
                           GError         **error)
{
  ViewerFile *self = VIEWER_FILE (editable);

  g_print ("File implementation of editable interface save method: %s.\n",
           self->filename);
}

static void
viewer_file_editable_undo (ViewerEditable *editable,
                           guint           n_steps)
{
  ViewerFile *self = VIEWER_FILE (editable);

  g_print ("File implementation of editable interface undo method: %s.\n",
           self->filename);
}

static void
viewer_file_editable_redo (ViewerEditable *editable,
                           guint           n_steps)
{
  ViewerFile *self = VIEWER_FILE (editable);

  g_print ("File implementation of editable interface redo method: %s.\n",
           self->filename);
}

static void
viewer_file_editable_interface_init (ViewerEditableInterface *iface)
{
  iface->save = viewer_file_editable_save;
  iface->undo = viewer_file_editable_undo;
  iface->redo = viewer_file_editable_redo;
}

static void
viewer_file_class_init (ViewerFileClass *klass)
{
  /* Nothing here. */
}

static void
viewer_file_init (ViewerFile *self)
{
  /* Instance variable initialisation code. */
}

G_DEFINE_TYPE_WITH_CODE (ViewerFile, viewer_file, G_TYPE_OBJECT,
                         G_IMPLEMENT_INTERFACE (VIEWER_TYPE_EDITABLE,
                                                viewer_file_editable_interface_init)
                         G_IMPLEMENT_INTERFACE (VIEWER_TYPE_EDITABLE_LOSSY,
                                                viewer_file_editable_lossy_interface_init))

It is very important to notice that the order in which interface implementations are added to the main object is not random: g_type_add_interface_static, which is called by G_IMPLEMENT_INTERFACE, must be invoked first on the interfaces which have no prerequisites and then on the others.