Add a document for an on disk module registry format

2008-08-17  Johan Dahlin  <johan@gnome.org>

    * docs/global-module-registry.txt:
    Add a document for an on disk module registry format


svn path=/trunk/; revision=393

1 files changed, 49 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/global-module-registry.txt b/docs/global-module-registry.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e360396
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/global-module-registry.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+Problem statement
+=================
+On-disk registry for mapping namespace to typelib. 
+Conceptually similar to mono /etc/mono/config.
+
+It should be possible in a dynamic language such as python to just do:
+
+>>> import PythonIntrospectionBindings
+>>> import Gtk
+
+
+Gtk should be a special namespace provided by the package containing the
+Gtk namespace
+
+Layout of the on disk tool
+==========================
+
+Location to should be /var/lib/glib/introspection-registry.db
+
+root { 
+  'Gtk': (path, version),
+}
+
+The format should be mmap(2):able, changes should only affect new processes. 
+Existing ones should keep on using the old registry. The overhead must be minimal.
+
+gir-registry-tool
+================
+Is a command line utility, probably written in C which should be used
+to update/modify the registry.
+
+Example use cases, installing a new typelib
+
+gir-registry-tool --install Gtk /usr/lib/glib/introspection/gtk.typelib 2.12.0
+gir-registry-tool --uninstall Gtk /usr/lib/glib/introspection/gtk.typelib 2.12.0
+
+It's the registry tools responsibility to sort the disk format.
+
+API
+===
+
+libgirepository should provide an api:
+
+gi_locale_typelib (const gchar *name, const gchar * version);
+
+version should NULL, if so it should pick the first one in the on-disk registry.
+
+libgirepository should mmap the registry and read it when that API is called
+the first time.