<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" id="tech-gobject" xml:lang="ru">

  <info>

    <link type="guide" xref="tech" group="gobject"/>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Federico Mena Quintero</name>

      <email its:translate="no">federico@gnome.org</email>

      <years>2013</years>

    </credit>

    <include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="cc-by-sa-3-0.xml"/>

    <desc>C-based object and type system with signals and slots</desc>

  </info>

<title>GObject</title>

  
GObject is the part of the <link xref="tech-glib">GLib</link> library that

  provides an object and type system for C programs. Although C as a language

  does not provide objects or classes, GObject makes it possible to write

  object-oriented C programs.

    GObject provides a fundamental GType, the base for the whole type system,

    from which types such as ints and strings are derived.  Then, there is

    GObject itself, the base class for all other classes.  Objects can emit

    signals to notify the caller when something interesting happens.

    For example, a Button object could emit a clicked

    signal to indicate that it has been pressed and released.

    GObject is introspectable, which means that you can ask the

    GObject system for the class types that are defined, the methods they

    support, their signals, etc.  GNOME's language bindings are built on top of

    this introspection information.  Instead of writing wrappers by hand to let

    GNOME APIs be called from other programming languages, language bindings

    use the introspection information from GObject to auto-generate those

    wrappers themselves.

    You normally don't need to be concerned with GObject itself if you are

    programming for GNOME with an object-oriented language.  However, making

    yourself familiar with GObject's concepts, such as signals and slots, will

    make your life easier as a GNOME programmer.

  <list style="compact">

    <item>
<link href="http://developer.gnome.org/gobject/stable/">GObject reference manual</link>
</item>

  </list>

</page>