IOStream

GIOStream represents an object that has both read and write streams. Generally the two streams act as separate input and output streams, but they share some common resources and state. For instance, for seekable streams, both streams may use the same position.

Examples of #GIOStream objects are #GSocketConnection, which represents a two-way network connection; and #GFileIOStream, which represents a file handle opened in read-write mode.

To do the actual reading and writing you need to get the substreams with g_io_stream_get_input_stream() and g_io_stream_get_output_stream().

The #GIOStream object owns the input and the output streams, not the other way around, so keeping the substreams alive will not keep the #GIOStream object alive. If the #GIOStream object is freed it will be closed, thus closing the substreams, so even if the substreams stay alive they will always return %G_IO_ERROR_CLOSED for all operations.

To close a stream use g_io_stream_close() which will close the common stream object and also the individual substreams. You can also close the substreams themselves. In most cases this only marks the substream as closed, so further I/O on it fails but common state in the #GIOStream may still be open. However, some streams may support "half-closed" states where one direction of the stream is actually shut down.

Operations on #GIOStreams cannot be started while another operation on the #GIOStream or its substreams is in progress. Specifically, an application can read from the #GInputStream and write to the #GOutputStream simultaneously (either in separate threads, or as asynchronous operations in the same thread), but an application cannot start any #GIOStream operation while there is a #GIOStream, #GInputStream or #GOutputStream operation in progress, and an application can’t start any #GInputStream or #GOutputStream operation while there is a #GIOStream operation in progress.

This is a product of individual stream operations being associated with a given #GMainContext (the thread-default context at the time the operation was started), rather than entire streams being associated with a single #GMainContext.

GIO may run operations on #GIOStreams from other (worker) threads, and this may be exposed to application code in the behaviour of wrapper streams, such as #GBufferedInputStream or #GTlsConnection. With such wrapper APIs, application code may only run operations on the base (wrapped) stream when the wrapper stream is idle. Note that the semantics of such operations may not be well-defined due to the state the wrapper stream leaves the base stream in (though they are guaranteed not to crash).

Skipped during bindings generation

• method closed: Property has no getter nor setter

Inheritors