Christophe Nowicki

August 29, 2006

Introspection support for DBuzilla

I’ve added methods for parsing D-BUS Introspection Data.

Now you can get informations about available interfaces, methods, signals and properties with the nsIDBusInterface object.

In order to test my methods I wrote an dbus-viwer clone in XUL : http://trac.csquad.org/browser/trunk/examples/dbus-viewer

Here is a screencast (1 Mo) where you can see dbus-viewer in action.

Filed under: Google Summer of Code,Mozilla Firefox — Tags:, — cscm @ 18:14

August 21, 2006

D-BUS for Mozilla project progress #4

Sorry, I did not update my progress since one month.

Here is my current progress on that project :

  • Signals are supported, you can send en receive signals
  • Introspection XML data is now parsed by my component
  • I’ve wrote an dbus-viewer clone in XUL
  • I’ve integrated Threads

But I did not release a 0.1 version because my wrapper produce a dead lock :
If you listen for a signal and call a remote method, you program get locked.
This is a common usage of D-BUS and I think that I can’t release my work without it.

This problem is caused by libdbus witch is not threads “aware” and because I don’t have a shared
lock between my threads.

Havoc Pennington explained me howto solve this issue : integrate libdbus inside my mainloop as glib as done :

GLIB Mainloop integration

This integration is hard because D-BUS is using UNIX file handle and NSPR does not provide functions to handle it.

I did not expect so many technical difficulties, but I stay motivated.
I continue to work on my project (after the end of the summer of code) and I will release version 0.1 as soon as the dead lock issue is solved.

Filed under: Google Summer of Code — Tags:, — cscm @ 06:54

July 18, 2006

D-BUS for Mozilla : version 0.1 is comming … soon!

Ok, boys and girls, version 0.1 is comming! ;0)

This week I was focused on documentation :

I’ve made progress in the wrapper code :

  • Mixed array are now supported : Array(1, ‘string’, 2.3)
  • Threads are now wrapped.
  • Callback are now handled, but not fully : It’s working for the XPCOM part but D-BUS does not call my handle back.

I will release version 0.1 when I find an issue to the callback problems. (I’d like to see asynchronous call and signals managed by 0.1).

Filed under: Google Summer of Code — Tags:, — cscm @ 11:00

July 10, 2006

D-BUS for Mozilla project progress #3

Here is my current progress on my project :

  • All basic arguments are supported, you can call a method with as many arguments as you want :
        ret = iface.callWithArguments("MethodName", ['arg1', 42, 43.1], 3)
    
  • Array support is limited to basic array (without mixed type)
    // var arg = new Array(1, 'string', 2.3) // does not work yet 
    var arg = new Array(1, 2, 3)
    ret = iface.callWithArguments("MethodName", [arg], 1)
    
  • I’ve started working on callback fonctions for asynchronous call and signals, but without sucess.
  • Exception are now supported
    try {
       ret = iface.call("SomethingGoesWrong")
    } catch (e) {
       e.name // error name, ex: org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.dbus.exceptions.UnknownMethodException
       e.message // error details, ex: SomethingGoesWrong is not a valid method of interface...
    }
    

    It’s working, but I thing that a more precise exception handling system is needed.

  • I continue to work on :

    • callback and signals
    • documentation

    I will release version 0.1 next week.

    Filed under: Google Summer of Code — Tags:, — cscm @ 08:51

    July 2, 2006

    D-BUS for Mozilla project progress #2

    Another point on my progress on the D-BUS for Mozilla projet.
    Now I’am able to return any basic type form D-BUS method call and I’ve started to work on returning Arrays and Dictionaries.
    The next step before the release of version 0.1 (full featured D-BUS client) will be :

    • Method Arguments handling
    • Error handling with exception

    I’ve planned this release in two weeks, soon ! ;0)

    Filed under: Google Summer of Code — Tags:, — cscm @ 20:17

    June 28, 2006

    D-BUS for Mozilla project progress

    My current progress on the project is disappointing, I am blocked on the value returned by an method call.
    I can make a basic D-BUS method call from Javascript, but I’am unable to get his return value.
    Here is the sample of code :

    var comp = Components.classes[nsDBUSContactID];
    var dbus = comp.createInstance();
    var session = dbus.SessionBus();
    var iface = session.FindInterface('org.mozilla.TestService', '/',  'org.mozilla.TestInterface')
    var ret = iface.Call('Hello')
    dump('return value = ' . ret ) 
    

    The ‘ret’ value can be of any kind of type (string, int, array, object, etc…).
    I’ve found the javascript code for managing any type of return value from an XPCOM method, in the mozilla xml-rpc extension :

    /* Create an instance of the given ContractID, with given interface */
    function createInstance(contractId, intf) {
        return Components.classes[contractId].createInstance(Components.interfaces[intf])
    }
    
    /* return type */
    function testReturn(type) {
        const SUPPORTSID = '@mozilla.org/supports-';
        var ret
        switch(type) {
            case 'INT32':
                ret = createInstance(SUPPORTSID + 'PRInt32;1', 
                    'nsISupportsPRInt32')
                ret.data = 65
                break
            case 'STRING':
                ret = createInstance(SUPPORTSID + 'cstring;1', 
                    'nsISupportsCString')
                ret.data = 'arf'
                break
            case 'DOUBLE':
                ret = createInstance(SUPPORTSID + 'double;1', 
                    'nsISupportsDouble')
                ret.data = 2.4
                break
           ....
        }
        return ret;
    }
    

    I’ve wrote the C++ version of this code, but It does not work :
    XPIDL prototype of my method :

    nsISupports Test();

    The C++ implementation :

    NS_IMETHODIMP
    nsDBusImpl::TestSupports(nsISupports **_retval) {
        nsresult rv;
        nsCOMPtr ret = 
            do_CreateInstance("@mozilla.org/supports-PRInt32;1", &rv);
        if (NS_FAILED(rv)) {
            return rv;
        }
        ret->SetData(42);
        // _retval = (nsISupports **) &ret; // Does not work
        // *_retval = ret;  // Segfault
    
        return NS_OK;
    }
    

    I’am stopped by this problem …

    Filed under: Google Summer of Code — Tags:, — cscm @ 09:23

    May 24, 2006

    D-BUS for Mozilla project started

    D-BUS for Mozilla I’ve setup an software developement platform with Trac for the D-BUS for Mozilla project :

    Filed under: Google Summer of Code,Mozilla Firefox — Tags:, — cscm @ 20:37

    January 8, 2006

    Extension Trashmail.net pour Mozilla Firefox

    Enfin!

    La voici enfin, l’extension qui va vous simplifiez la vie et vous evitez de recevoir pleins de promotions dans votre boîte de messagrie !

    Après avoir harceler Stephan Ferraro durant prés d’un an, celui-ci à enfin pris le temps d’écrire un plugin pour Mozilla Firefox à fin de rendre le service Trashmail.net accéssible directement dans votre navigateur.

    Le concept de Trashmail.net

    Le concept de Trashmail.net est extrèment simple, il consite à mettre à votre disposition un alias de messagerie temporaire.

    Par exemple votre adresse de messagerie est : jean.rachid@free.fr.
    Vous voulez faire un achat sur un site web marchant bien connue pour la quantité de SPAM envoyer par jour.
    Nous pouvons citer Pixmania, Alapage, GrosBill, etc …
    Vous allez sur le site de Trashmail, pour créer un alias de messagerie temporaire de type : ffwqtn@trashmail.net.
    Et vous donnez cette adresse de message temporaire lors de la commande.
    Comme cela vous ne receverz que le ou les messages lier à votre commande et non la plétore de messages publicitaires qui vont suivre.
    J’utilise ce système depuis présque 3ans et je n’ai rencontrer aucun souci.

    L’extension pour Mozilla Firefox

    Mais aujourd’hui, c’est encore plus facile ;0)
    Vous n’avez même plus besoin d’allez sur le site de trashmail.
    Il vous suffit d’installer l’extension dans votre navigateur :

    http://www.trashmail.net/plugins/firefox/trashmail-firefox-1_0.xpi

    Et d’utiliser le menu contextuel pour créer une adresse de messagerie temporaire en 2 click.

    C’est encore plus simple ;0)

    Filed under: Mozilla Firefox — Tags: — cscm @ 11:17

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