wl-scanner

README

wl-scanner

The wl-scanner project is designed parse and generate Go client code from a wayland protocol file.

In its base form, it produces the client.go code in github.com/rajveermalviya/wl from the canonical definition of the wayland protocol at https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/plain/protocol/wayland.xml

It is similar in concept to the wayland-scanner tool which was developed for generating the C client library.

This is a hobby project, intended to help people understand the wayland.xml protocol file and the generation go code, as well as to help build client libraries for protocols around Wayland.

Usage

go install github.com/rajveermalviya/wl-scanner

# generate a client for the base protocol
wl-scanner -source https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/plain/protocol/wayland.xml \
           -output client.go

# generate a client for the xdg-shell protocol
wl-scanner -pkg xdg \
           -source https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wayland-project/wayland-protocols/master/stable/xdg-shell/xdg-shell.xml \
           -output xdg/shell.go

Unstable Protocols

Unstable protocols can be generated in a way that makes it relatively easy to upgrade to newer versions of the protocol, under the assumption that changes are relatively small. This is done by stripping the "_vN" suffix, as for example:

wl-scanner -pkg zxdg \
           -source https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wayland-project/wayland-protocols/master/unstable/xdg-shell/xdg-shell-unstable-v6.xml \
           -output xdg-unstable-v6/shell.go

The zxdg package name is preserved, but this can be imported in the client application as:

import (
	xdg "github.com/rajveermalviya/wl/xdg-unstable-v6"
)

and then most code will hopefully be able to port from one major change to another. Obviously, mileage will vary depending on the extent of the change.