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Graphics Using Xlib, Part 2: Writing Programs
By Amol Takkalki on July 1, 2011 in Coding, Developers 3 Comments
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This article applies the concepts explained in Part l of this series with a sample program.
In case you have forgotten the concepts, a quick recap might be helpful. A client (user program) and the server communicate with each other through Xlib, which is running on either the local or a remote system. The X protocol defines each packet of information transferred in both directions, in the form of requests, replies, events and errors. I have assumed a basic knowledge of C on your part, as a requisite to learning to use Xlib. Before we commence with programming, you should be aware of certain important conventions and concepts defined to be standard. Also remember that X is not a part of the OS, but is an application. Windows: The window system in Xlib follows a hierarchical architecture, which makes it easy to identify the parent and child, and also control them. This hierarchy could be deep, to handle more complexities. Each window has its own coordinate system, which has the X axis (horizontal) and the Y axis (vertical) with the origin [0, 0] at the upper-left corner of the window. Coordinates are integral, in terms of pixels, and coincide with pixel centres. For a window, the origin is inside the border at the inside, upper-left corner. The X window system can support one or more screens on the monitor. A collection of screens that belongs to a user, along with the keyboard and mouse, is called a display. X provides graphics, text, and raster operations for the windows.
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Function naming conventions:
1. All function names and user-visible data structures start with X . 2. Macro names are entirely in upper-case letters. 3. The names of all elements in a data structure are lower-case. 4. Compound words are separated by an underscore (_ ). Errors: If the function fails, it returns a zero. When Xlib detects an error, it calls an error handler, which your program can provide. If you do not provide an error handler, the error is printed, and your program terminates.
Writing programs in X
If you have read my previous article, the main emphasis was on understanding the working of X. The outline of an X client program could be as follows: 1. Establish a connection with the server. 2. Open a window(s). 3. Declare variables/allocate memory.
4. Send requests and get replies from the server. 5. Handle all the errors appropriately. 6. Free all the variables. 7. Close the window(s). 8. Close the connection with the server. Lets begin programming by following these steps, in order to avoid complexities and confusion. We will write a very simple program, with the least necessary operations, to understand the steps listed above. Almost all programs that you write using Xlib will have pretty much the same basic steps, with additional code providing application-specific functionality.
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The program
Our simple program opens a window with a black background, and closes it after a short delay. The code is as follows:
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# i n c l u d e< X 1 1 / X l i b . h >/ * X l i bh e a d e rf i l e * / # i n c l u d e< s t d i o . h > i n tm a i n ( v o i d ) { D i s p l a yd i s ;/ * V a r i a b l ef o rh a n d l i n gd i s p l a y * / W i n d o ww i n ;/ * V a r i a b l ef o rh a n d l i n gw i n d o w * / F acebook social plugin d i s=X o p e n D i s p l a y ( N U L L ) ; / * W eh a v ej u s to p e n e dac o n n e c t i o nw i t ht h eXs e r v e r . I ft h i sf a i l s ,t h ef u n c t i o nw i l lr e t u r na' 0 '* / w i n=X C r e a t e S i m p l e W i n d o w ( d i s ,R o o t W i n d o w ( d i s ,0 ) ,1 ,1 ,5 0 0 ,5 0 0 ,0 ,B l a c k P i x e l( d i s ,0 ) ,B l a c k P i x e l( d i s ,0 ) ) ; / * T h i sf u n c t i o nw i l lc r e a t eas i m p l ew i n d o wo f5 0 0 x 5 0 0w i t hb l a c kb a c k g r o u n d * / X M a p W i n d o w ( d i s ,w i n ) ; Popular Comments Tag cloud / * T h eX M a p W i n d o wf u n c t i o nm a p st h ew i n d o wa n da l lo fi t ss u b w i n d o w st h a th a v eh a dm a pr e q u e s t s .* / X f l u s h ( d i s ) ;/ * T h eX F l u s hf u n c t i o nf l u s h e st h eo u t p u tb u f f e r . * / August 13, 2013 46 Comments Diksha P Gupta s l e e p ( 5 ) ;/ * F r e e z ef o r5s e c o n d sb e f o r ec l o s i n g . * / India has immense under-utilised talent in the cloud X c l o s e D i s p l a y ( d i s ) ;/ * C l o s et h ec o n n e c t i o nw i t ht h eXs e r v e r* / r e t u r n ( 0 ) ; security space }
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Compile the program with: g c ci p . coo pl X 1 1 ; and run it with: . / o p
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Conclusion
These are the steps necessary to write a program with Xlib. C programmers ought not to face any difficulty in understanding the program, since most parts are self-explanatory. We might do a program to plot graph points in a future article, but I would like you to explore some part of Xlib on your own; I suggest you take a look at the graphics functions, like drawing a rectangle. Obtaining some insight before the next article would definitely help you understand the scope of Xlib.
Feature image courtesy: Nate Steiner. Reused under the terms of CC-BY 2.0 License.
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Tags: error handler, Exception handling, LFY July 2011, naming conventions, Nate Steiner, window coordinates, X Protocol, X server, X Window System, Xlib
Article written by:
Amol Takkalki
The author has been using Linux for the past three years, and is a big fan of it. His hobbies are photography and programming. Connect with him: Website
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Newest Community s rivat s a
2 months ago
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The corrections compiled successfuly
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arc t ic -fox
2 months ago
There seems to be a few little typos mostly case. 1 Display dis; should be Display *dis; 2 dis = XopenDislpay(NULL); should be XOpenDisplay(NULL): //capital O 3 Xflush(dis); should be XFlush(dis); //capital F 4 XcloseDisplay(dis); should be XCloseDisplay(dis); //capital C
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t ed
2 months ago
$ gcc ip.c -o op -lX11 ip.c: In function main: ip.[Link] error: storage size of dis isnt known
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