committed the wrong file
This commit is contained in:
Michael Stapelberg
parent
520f4d15d2
commit
4cbece46c2
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
|
|||
IPC interface (interprocess communication)
|
||||
==========================================
|
||||
Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
|
||||
March 2010
|
||||
|
||||
This document describes how to interface with i3 from a separate process. This
|
||||
is useful for example to remote-control i3 (to write test cases for example) or
|
||||
to get various information like the current workspaces to implement an external
|
||||
workspace bar.
|
||||
|
||||
The method of choice for IPC in our case is a unix socket because it has very
|
||||
little overhead on both sides and is usually available without headaches in
|
||||
most languages. In the default configuration file, no ipc-socket path is
|
||||
specified and thus no socket is created. The standard path (which +i3-msg+ and
|
||||
+i3-input+ use) is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
|
||||
|
||||
== Establishing a connection
|
||||
|
||||
To establish a connection, simply open the IPC socket. The following code
|
||||
snippet illustrates this in Perl:
|
||||
|
||||
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
use IO::Socket::UNIX;
|
||||
my $sock = IO::Socket::UNIX->new(Peer => '/tmp/i3-ipc.sock');
|
||||
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
== Sending messages to i3
|
||||
|
||||
To send a message to i3, you have to format in the binary message format which
|
||||
i3 expects. This format specifies a magic string in the beginning to ensure
|
||||
the integrity of messages (to prevent follow-up errors). Afterwards follows
|
||||
the length of the payload of the message as 32-bit integer and the type of
|
||||
the message as 32-bit integer (the integers are not converted, so they are
|
||||
in native byte order).
|
||||
|
||||
The magic string currently is "i3-ipc" and will only be changed when a change
|
||||
in the IPC API is done which breaks compatibility (we hope that we don’t need
|
||||
to do that).
|
||||
|
||||
Currently implemented message types are the following:
|
||||
|
||||
0 (COMMAND)::
|
||||
The payload of the message is a command for i3 (like the commands you
|
||||
can bind to keys in the configuration file) and will be executed
|
||||
directly after receiving it. There is no reply to this message.
|
||||
1 (GET_WORKSPACES)::
|
||||
Gets the current workspaces. The reply will be a JSON-encoded list of
|
||||
workspaces (see the reply section).
|
||||
|
||||
So, a typical message could look like this:
|
||||
--------------------------------------------------
|
||||
"i3-ipc" <message length> <message type> <payload>
|
||||
--------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
Or, as a hexdump:
|
||||
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
00000000 69 33 2d 69 70 63 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 65 78 |i3-ipc........ex|
|
||||
00000010 69 74 0a |it.|
|
||||
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
To generate and send such a message, you could use the following code in Perl:
|
||||
------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
sub format_ipc_command {
|
||||
my ($msg) = @_;
|
||||
my $len;
|
||||
# Get the real byte count (vs. amount of characters)
|
||||
{ use bytes; $len = length($msg); }
|
||||
return "i3-ipc" . pack("LL", $len, 0) . $msg;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
$sock->write(format_ipc_command("exit"));
|
||||
------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
== Receiving replies from i3
|
||||
|
||||
Replies of i3 usually consist of a simple string (the length of the string
|
||||
is the message_length, so you can consider them length-prefixed) which in turn
|
||||
contain the JSON serialization of a data structure. For example, the
|
||||
GET_WORKSPACES message returns an array of workspaces (each workspace is a map
|
||||
with certain attributes).
|
||||
|
||||
=== Reply format
|
||||
|
||||
The reply format is identical to the normal message format. There also is
|
||||
the magic string, then the message length, then the message type and the
|
||||
payload.
|
||||
|
||||
The following reply types are implemented:
|
||||
|
||||
1 (GET_WORKSPACES)::
|
||||
Reply to the GET_WORKSPACES message.
|
||||
|
||||
=== GET_WORKSPACES reply
|
||||
|
||||
The reply consists of a serialized list of workspaces. Each workspace has the
|
||||
following properties:
|
||||
|
||||
num (integer)::
|
||||
The internal number of the workspace. Corresponds to the command
|
||||
to switch to this workspace.
|
||||
name (string)::
|
||||
The name of this workspace (by default num+1), as changed by the
|
||||
user. Encoded in UTF-8.
|
||||
visible (boolean)::
|
||||
Whether this workspace is currently visible on an output (multiple
|
||||
workspaces can be visible at the same time).
|
||||
focused (boolean)::
|
||||
Whether this workspace currently has the focus (only one workspace
|
||||
can have the focus at the same time).
|
||||
rect (map)::
|
||||
The rectangle of this workspace (equals the rect of the output it
|
||||
is on), consists of x, y, width, height.
|
||||
output (string)::
|
||||
The video output this workspace is on (LVDS1, VGA1, …).
|
||||
|
||||
*Example:*
|
||||
-------------------
|
||||
[
|
||||
{
|
||||
"num": 0,
|
||||
"name": "1",
|
||||
"visible": true,
|
||||
"focused": true,
|
||||
"rect": {
|
||||
"x": 0,
|
||||
"y": 0,
|
||||
"width": 1280,
|
||||
"height": 800
|
||||
},
|
||||
"output": "LVDS1"
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"num": 1,
|
||||
"name": "2",
|
||||
"visible": false,
|
||||
"focused": false,
|
||||
"rect": {
|
||||
"x": 0,
|
||||
"y": 0,
|
||||
"width": 1280,
|
||||
"height": 800
|
||||
},
|
||||
"output": "LVDS1"
|
||||
}
|
||||
]
|
||||
-------------------
|
||||
766
docs/ipc.html
766
docs/ipc.html
|
|
@ -1,766 +0,0 @@
|
|||
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
|
||||
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
|
||||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
|
||||
<head>
|
||||
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
|
||||
<meta name="generator" content="AsciiDoc 8.5.2" />
|
||||
<title>IPC interface (interprocess communication)</title>
|
||||
<style type="text/css">
|
||||
/* Debug borders */
|
||||
p, li, dt, dd, div, pre, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
|
||||
/*
|
||||
border: 1px solid red;
|
||||
*/
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
body {
|
||||
margin: 1em 5% 1em 5%;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
a {
|
||||
color: blue;
|
||||
text-decoration: underline;
|
||||
}
|
||||
a:visited {
|
||||
color: fuchsia;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
em {
|
||||
font-style: italic;
|
||||
color: navy;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
strong {
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
color: #083194;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
tt {
|
||||
color: navy;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
margin-top: 1.2em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
line-height: 1.3;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
h1, h2, h3 {
|
||||
border-bottom: 2px solid silver;
|
||||
}
|
||||
h2 {
|
||||
padding-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
h3 {
|
||||
float: left;
|
||||
}
|
||||
h3 + * {
|
||||
clear: left;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.sectionbody {
|
||||
font-family: serif;
|
||||
margin-left: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
hr {
|
||||
border: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
p {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
ul, ol, li > p {
|
||||
margin-top: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
pre {
|
||||
padding: 0;
|
||||
margin: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
span#author {
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
font-size: 1.1em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
span#email {
|
||||
}
|
||||
span#revnumber, span#revdate, span#revremark {
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div#footer {
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-size: small;
|
||||
border-top: 2px solid silver;
|
||||
padding-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
margin-top: 4.0em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div#footer-text {
|
||||
float: left;
|
||||
padding-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div#footer-badges {
|
||||
float: right;
|
||||
padding-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div#preamble {
|
||||
margin-top: 1.5em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.tableblock, div.imageblock, div.exampleblock, div.verseblock,
|
||||
div.quoteblock, div.literalblock, div.listingblock, div.sidebarblock,
|
||||
div.admonitionblock {
|
||||
margin-top: 1.0em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.admonitionblock {
|
||||
margin-top: 2.0em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 2.0em;
|
||||
margin-right: 10%;
|
||||
color: #606060;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.content { /* Block element content. */
|
||||
padding: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
/* Block element titles. */
|
||||
div.title, caption.title {
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
text-align: left;
|
||||
margin-top: 1.0em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.title + * {
|
||||
margin-top: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
td div.title:first-child {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.0em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.content div.title:first-child {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.0em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.content + div.title {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.0em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.sidebarblock > div.content {
|
||||
background: #ffffee;
|
||||
border: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
padding: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.listingblock > div.content {
|
||||
border: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
background: #f4f4f4;
|
||||
padding: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.quoteblock, div.verseblock {
|
||||
padding-left: 1.0em;
|
||||
margin-left: 1.0em;
|
||||
margin-right: 10%;
|
||||
border-left: 5px solid #dddddd;
|
||||
color: #777777;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.quoteblock > div.attribution {
|
||||
padding-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
text-align: right;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.verseblock > div.content {
|
||||
white-space: pre;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.verseblock > div.attribution {
|
||||
padding-top: 0.75em;
|
||||
text-align: left;
|
||||
}
|
||||
/* DEPRECATED: Pre version 8.2.7 verse style literal block. */
|
||||
div.verseblock + div.attribution {
|
||||
text-align: left;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.admonitionblock .icon {
|
||||
vertical-align: top;
|
||||
font-size: 1.1em;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
text-decoration: underline;
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
padding-right: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.admonitionblock td.content {
|
||||
padding-left: 0.5em;
|
||||
border-left: 3px solid #dddddd;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.exampleblock > div.content {
|
||||
border-left: 3px solid #dddddd;
|
||||
padding-left: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.imageblock div.content { padding-left: 0; }
|
||||
span.image img { border-style: none; }
|
||||
a.image:visited { color: white; }
|
||||
|
||||
dl {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.8em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.8em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
dt {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0;
|
||||
font-style: normal;
|
||||
color: navy;
|
||||
}
|
||||
dd > *:first-child {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.1em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
ul, ol {
|
||||
list-style-position: outside;
|
||||
}
|
||||
ol.arabic {
|
||||
list-style-type: decimal;
|
||||
}
|
||||
ol.loweralpha {
|
||||
list-style-type: lower-alpha;
|
||||
}
|
||||
ol.upperalpha {
|
||||
list-style-type: upper-alpha;
|
||||
}
|
||||
ol.lowerroman {
|
||||
list-style-type: lower-roman;
|
||||
}
|
||||
ol.upperroman {
|
||||
list-style-type: upper-roman;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.compact ul, div.compact ol,
|
||||
div.compact p, div.compact p,
|
||||
div.compact div, div.compact div {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.1em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.1em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.tableblock > table {
|
||||
border: 3px solid #527bbd;
|
||||
}
|
||||
thead, p.table.header {
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
}
|
||||
tfoot {
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
}
|
||||
td > div.verse {
|
||||
white-space: pre;
|
||||
}
|
||||
p.table {
|
||||
margin-top: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
/* Because the table frame attribute is overriden by CSS in most browsers. */
|
||||
div.tableblock > table[frame="void"] {
|
||||
border-style: none;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.tableblock > table[frame="hsides"] {
|
||||
border-left-style: none;
|
||||
border-right-style: none;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.tableblock > table[frame="vsides"] {
|
||||
border-top-style: none;
|
||||
border-bottom-style: none;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
div.hdlist {
|
||||
margin-top: 0.8em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.8em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.hdlist tr {
|
||||
padding-bottom: 15px;
|
||||
}
|
||||
dt.hdlist1.strong, td.hdlist1.strong {
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
}
|
||||
td.hdlist1 {
|
||||
vertical-align: top;
|
||||
font-style: normal;
|
||||
padding-right: 0.8em;
|
||||
color: navy;
|
||||
}
|
||||
td.hdlist2 {
|
||||
vertical-align: top;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.hdlist.compact tr {
|
||||
margin: 0;
|
||||
padding-bottom: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
.comment {
|
||||
background: yellow;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
.footnote, .footnoteref {
|
||||
font-size: 0.8em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
span.footnote, span.footnoteref {
|
||||
vertical-align: super;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
#footnotes {
|
||||
margin: 20px 0 20px 0;
|
||||
padding: 7px 0 0 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
#footnotes div.footnote {
|
||||
margin: 0 0 5px 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
#footnotes hr {
|
||||
border: none;
|
||||
border-top: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
height: 1px;
|
||||
text-align: left;
|
||||
margin-left: 0;
|
||||
width: 20%;
|
||||
min-width: 100px;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@media print {
|
||||
div#footer-badges { display: none; }
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div#toc {
|
||||
margin-bottom: 2.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div#toctitle {
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-size: 1.1em;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
margin-top: 1.0em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.1em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.toclevel1, div.toclevel2, div.toclevel3, div.toclevel4 {
|
||||
margin-top: 0;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.toclevel2 {
|
||||
margin-left: 2em;
|
||||
font-size: 0.9em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.toclevel3 {
|
||||
margin-left: 4em;
|
||||
font-size: 0.9em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.toclevel4 {
|
||||
margin-left: 6em;
|
||||
font-size: 0.9em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
/* Workarounds for IE6's broken and incomplete CSS2. */
|
||||
|
||||
div.sidebar-content {
|
||||
background: #ffffee;
|
||||
border: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
padding: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.sidebar-title, div.image-title {
|
||||
color: #527bbd;
|
||||
font-family: sans-serif;
|
||||
font-weight: bold;
|
||||
margin-top: 0.0em;
|
||||
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.listingblock div.content {
|
||||
border: 1px solid silver;
|
||||
background: #f4f4f4;
|
||||
padding: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.quoteblock-attribution {
|
||||
padding-top: 0.5em;
|
||||
text-align: right;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.verseblock-content {
|
||||
white-space: pre;
|
||||
}
|
||||
div.verseblock-attribution {
|
||||
padding-top: 0.75em;
|
||||
text-align: left;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
div.exampleblock-content {
|
||||
border-left: 3px solid #dddddd;
|
||||
padding-left: 0.5em;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
/* IE6 sets dynamically generated links as visited. */
|
||||
div#toc a:visited { color: blue; }
|
||||
</style>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
/*<+'])');
|
||||
// Function that scans the DOM tree for header elements (the DOM2
|
||||
// nodeIterator API would be a better technique but not supported by all
|
||||
// browsers).
|
||||
var iterate = function (el) {
|
||||
for (var i = el.firstChild; i != null; i = i.nextSibling) {
|
||||
if (i.nodeType == 1 /* Node.ELEMENT_NODE */) {
|
||||
var mo = re.exec(i.tagName);
|
||||
if (mo && (i.getAttribute("class") || i.getAttribute("className")) != "float") {
|
||||
result[result.length] = new TocEntry(i, getText(i), mo[1]-1);
|
||||
}
|
||||
iterate(i);
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
iterate(el);
|
||||
return result;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
var toc = document.getElementById("toc");
|
||||
var entries = tocEntries(document.getElementById("content"), toclevels);
|
||||
for (var i = 0; i < entries.length; ++i) {
|
||||
var entry = entries[i];
|
||||
if (entry.element.id == "")
|
||||
entry.element.id = "_toc_" + i;
|
||||
var a = document.createElement("a");
|
||||
a.href = "#" + entry.element.id;
|
||||
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(entry.text));
|
||||
var div = document.createElement("div");
|
||||
div.appendChild(a);
|
||||
div.className = "toclevel" + entry.toclevel;
|
||||
toc.appendChild(div);
|
||||
}
|
||||
if (entries.length == 0)
|
||||
toc.parentNode.removeChild(toc);
|
||||
},
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
|
||||
// Footnotes generator
|
||||
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
|
||||
|
||||
/* Based on footnote generation code from:
|
||||
* http://www.brandspankingnew.net/archive/2005/07/format_footnote.html
|
||||
*/
|
||||
|
||||
footnotes: function () {
|
||||
var cont = document.getElementById("content");
|
||||
var noteholder = document.getElementById("footnotes");
|
||||
var spans = cont.getElementsByTagName("span");
|
||||
var refs = {};
|
||||
var n = 0;
|
||||
for (i=0; i<spans.length; i++) {
|
||||
if (spans[i].className == "footnote") {
|
||||
n++;
|
||||
// Use [\s\S] in place of . so multi-line matches work.
|
||||
// Because JavaScript has no s (dotall) regex flag.
|
||||
note = spans[i].innerHTML.match(/\s*\[([\s\S]*)]\s*/)[1];
|
||||
noteholder.innerHTML +=
|
||||
"<div class='footnote' id='_footnote_" + n + "'>" +
|
||||
"<a href='#_footnoteref_" + n + "' title='Return to text'>" +
|
||||
n + "</a>. " + note + "</div>";
|
||||
spans[i].innerHTML =
|
||||
"[<a id='_footnoteref_" + n + "' href='#_footnote_" + n +
|
||||
"' title='View footnote' class='footnote'>" + n + "</a>]";
|
||||
var id =spans[i].getAttribute("id");
|
||||
if (id != null) refs["#"+id] = n;
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
if (n == 0)
|
||||
noteholder.parentNode.removeChild(noteholder);
|
||||
else {
|
||||
// Process footnoterefs.
|
||||
for (i=0; i<spans.length; i++) {
|
||||
if (spans[i].className == "footnoteref") {
|
||||
var href = spans[i].getElementsByTagName("a")[0].getAttribute("href");
|
||||
href = href.match(/#.*/)[0]; // Because IE return full URL.
|
||||
n = refs[href];
|
||||
spans[i].innerHTML =
|
||||
"[<a href='#_footnote_" + n +
|
||||
"' title='View footnote' class='footnote'>" + n + "</a>]";
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
}
|
||||
/*]]>*/
|
||||
</script>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body>
|
||||
<div id="header">
|
||||
<h1>IPC interface (interprocess communication)</h1>
|
||||
<span id="author">Michael Stapelberg</span><br />
|
||||
<span id="email"><tt><<a href="mailto:michael+i3@stapelberg.de">michael+i3@stapelberg.de</a>></tt></span><br />
|
||||
<span id="revdate">March 2010</span>
|
||||
<div id="toc">
|
||||
<div id="toctitle">Table of Contents</div>
|
||||
<noscript><p><b>JavaScript must be enabled in your browser to display the table of contents.</b></p></noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div id="content">
|
||||
<div id="preamble">
|
||||
<div class="sectionbody">
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>This document describes how to interface with i3 from a separate process. This
|
||||
is useful for example to remote-control i3 (to write test cases for example) or
|
||||
to get various information like the current workspaces to implement an external
|
||||
workspace bar.</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>The method of choice for IPC in our case is a unix socket because it has very
|
||||
little overhead on both sides and is usually available without headaches in
|
||||
most languages. In the default configuration file, no ipc-socket path is
|
||||
specified and thus no socket is created. The standard path (which <tt>i3-msg</tt> and
|
||||
<tt>i3-input</tt> use) is <tt>/tmp/i3-ipc.sock</tt>.</p></div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<h2 id="_establishing_a_connection">1. Establishing a connection</h2>
|
||||
<div class="sectionbody">
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>To establish a connection, simply open the IPC socket. The following code
|
||||
snippet illustrates this in Perl:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="listingblock">
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<pre><tt>use IO::Socket::UNIX;
|
||||
my $sock = IO::Socket::UNIX->new(Peer => '/tmp/i3-ipc.sock');</tt></pre>
|
||||
</div></div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<h2 id="_sending_messages_to_i3">2. Sending messages to i3</h2>
|
||||
<div class="sectionbody">
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>To send a message to i3, you have to format in the binary message format which
|
||||
i3 expects. This format specifies a magic string in the beginning to ensure
|
||||
the integrity of messages (to prevent follow-up errors). Afterwards follows
|
||||
the length of the payload of the message as 32-bit integer and the type of
|
||||
the message as 32-bit integer (the integers are not converted, so they are
|
||||
in native byte order).</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>The magic string currently is "i3-ipc" and will only be changed when a change
|
||||
in the IPC API is done which breaks compatibility (we hope that we don’t need
|
||||
to do that).</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>Currently implemented message types are the following:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="dlist"><dl>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
0 (COMMAND)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The payload of the message is a command for i3 (like the commands you
|
||||
can bind to keys in the configuration file) and will be executed
|
||||
directly after receiving it. There is no reply to this message.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
1 (GET_WORKSPACES)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Gets the current workspaces. The reply will be a JSON-encoded list of
|
||||
workspaces (see the reply section).
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>So, a typical message could look like this:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="listingblock">
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<pre><tt>"i3-ipc" <message length> <message type> <payload></tt></pre>
|
||||
</div></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>Or, as a hexdump:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="listingblock">
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<pre><tt>00000000 69 33 2d 69 70 63 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 65 78 |i3-ipc........ex|
|
||||
00000010 69 74 0a |it.|</tt></pre>
|
||||
</div></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>To generate and send such a message, you could use the following code in Perl:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="listingblock">
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<pre><tt>sub format_ipc_command {
|
||||
my ($msg) = @_;
|
||||
my $len;
|
||||
# Get the real byte count (vs. amount of characters)
|
||||
{ use bytes; $len = length($msg); }
|
||||
return "i3-ipc" . pack("LL", $len, 0) . $msg;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
$sock->write(format_ipc_command("exit"));</tt></pre>
|
||||
</div></div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<h2 id="_receiving_replies_from_i3">3. Receiving replies from i3</h2>
|
||||
<div class="sectionbody">
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>Replies of i3 usually consist of a simple string (the length of the string
|
||||
is the message_length, so you can consider them length-prefixed) which in turn
|
||||
contain the JSON serialization of a data structure. For example, the
|
||||
GET_WORKSPACES message returns an array of workspaces (each workspace is a map
|
||||
with certain attributes).</p></div>
|
||||
<h3 id="_reply_format">3.1. Reply format</h3><div style="clear:left"></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>The reply format is identical to the normal message format. There also is
|
||||
the magic string, then the message length, then the message type and the
|
||||
payload.</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>The following reply types are implemented:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="dlist"><dl>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
1 (GET_WORKSPACES)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Reply to the GET_WORKSPACES message.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl></div>
|
||||
<h3 id="_get_workspaces_reply">3.2. GET_WORKSPACES reply</h3><div style="clear:left"></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p>The reply consists of a serialized list of workspaces. Each workspace has the
|
||||
following properties:</p></div>
|
||||
<div class="dlist"><dl>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
num (integer)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The internal number of the workspace. Corresponds to the command
|
||||
to switch to this workspace.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
name (string)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The name of this workspace (by default num+1), as changed by the
|
||||
user. Encoded in UTF-8.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
visible (boolean)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Whether this workspace is currently visible on an output (multiple
|
||||
workspaces can be visible at the same time).
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
focused (boolean)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Whether this workspace currently has the focus (only one workspace
|
||||
can have the focus at the same time).
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
rect (map)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The rectangle of this workspace (equals the rect of the output it
|
||||
is on), consists of x, y, width, height.
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dt class="hdlist1">
|
||||
output (string)
|
||||
</dt>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The video output this workspace is on (LVDS1, VGA1, …).
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl></div>
|
||||
<div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example:</strong></p></div>
|
||||
<div class="listingblock">
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<pre><tt>[
|
||||
{
|
||||
"num": 0,
|
||||
"name": "1",
|
||||
"visible": true,
|
||||
"focused": true,
|
||||
"rect": {
|
||||
"x": 0,
|
||||
"y": 0,
|
||||
"width": 1280,
|
||||
"height": 800
|
||||
},
|
||||
"output": "LVDS1"
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"num": 1,
|
||||
"name": "2",
|
||||
"visible": false,
|
||||
"focused": false,
|
||||
"rect": {
|
||||
"x": 0,
|
||||
"y": 0,
|
||||
"width": 1280,
|
||||
"height": 800
|
||||
},
|
||||
"output": "LVDS1"
|
||||
}
|
||||
]</tt></pre>
|
||||
</div></div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
|
||||
<div id="footer">
|
||||
<div id="footer-text">
|
||||
Last updated 2010-03-12 03:04:46 CEST
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue