How can I find names of GTypes -- I need the name for typeFromName() to get the GType

[StefanSalewski]

It seems that there is no complete list of GType names available, and some names are really hard to guess. We can use this C program which prints the names when we give the well known GTYPE C macro. Insert the desired GTYPE macro as G_TYPE_STRING, and compile and run the program.

// gcc -o t t.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags gtk+-3.0`
#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

  printf("%s\n", g_type_name(G_TYPE_STRING));
  printf("%s\n", g_type_name(G_TYPE_SOURCE));

  return 0;
}

Reference: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/2017-September/msg00137.html

[StefanSalewski]

Starting with gintro v0.6.0 we have the get_type() functions available as well as we can use (g)typeFromeName(). The funny fact of the g_type_from_name() is, that it do not register the GTypes, so it does generally not work for GtkSourceView types before the corresponding get_type() function is called.

So we try to provide all needed get_type() functions, which is not that easy at all. g_float_get_type() for example is not provided by GTK, maybe because gfloat is a basic type and C programmers use macros generally like G_TYPE_FLOAT. So we defined our get_type ourself, for gfloat by referring g_type_from_name("gfloat"). So generally all needed get_type() functions should be available now. typeFromName() can be used for most types, but may return 0 as long as corresponding get_type() has not been used. This behaviour is a bit strange indeed, it has been confirmed by one of the GTK maintainers for the GTK lib. listview.nim contains example use for typeFromName() as well as g_string_get_type().

This issue was about some strange GTK type names which can be hard to guess. Here is an extended C program which prints the type names of basic GTK types:

```// gcc -o t t.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags gtk+-3.0`
#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

// basic types
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_INVALID", g_type_name(G_TYPE_INVALID));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_NONE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_NONE));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_NONE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_NONE));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_INTERFACE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_INTERFACE));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_CHAR", g_type_name(G_TYPE_CHAR));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_UCHAR", g_type_name(G_TYPE_UCHAR));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_BOOLEAN", g_type_name(G_TYPE_BOOLEAN));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_INT", g_type_name(G_TYPE_INT));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_UINT", g_type_name(G_TYPE_UINT));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_LONG", g_type_name(G_TYPE_LONG));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_ULONG", g_type_name(G_TYPE_ULONG));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_INT64", g_type_name(G_TYPE_INT64));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_UINT64", g_type_name(G_TYPE_UINT64));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_ENUM", g_type_name(G_TYPE_ENUM));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_FLAGS", g_type_name(G_TYPE_FLAGS));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_FLOAT", g_type_name(G_TYPE_FLOAT));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_DOUBLE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_DOUBLE));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_STRING", g_type_name(G_TYPE_STRING));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_POINTER", g_type_name(G_TYPE_POINTER));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_BOXED", g_type_name(G_TYPE_BOXED));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_PARAM", g_type_name(G_TYPE_PARAM));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_OBJECT", g_type_name(G_TYPE_OBJECT));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_GTYPE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_GTYPE));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_VARIANT", g_type_name(G_TYPE_VARIANT));
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_CHECKSUM", g_type_name(G_TYPE_CHECKSUM));
printf("%s: %s (%ld)\n", "G_TYPE_CHECKSUM", g_type_name(G_TYPE_CHECKSUM), g_type_from_name(g_type_name(G_TYPE_CHECKSUM)));

// other types
printf("%s: %s\n", "G_TYPE_SOURCE", g_type_name(G_TYPE_SOURCE));

return 0;
}

Output is

G_TYPE_INVALID: (null)
G_TYPE_NONE: void
G_TYPE_NONE: void
G_TYPE_INTERFACE: GInterface
G_TYPE_CHAR: gchar
G_TYPE_UCHAR: guchar
G_TYPE_BOOLEAN: gboolean
G_TYPE_INT: gint
G_TYPE_UINT: guint
G_TYPE_LONG: glong
G_TYPE_ULONG: gulong
G_TYPE_INT64: gint64
G_TYPE_UINT64: guint64
G_TYPE_ENUM: GEnum
G_TYPE_FLAGS: GFlags
G_TYPE_FLOAT: gfloat
G_TYPE_DOUBLE: gdouble
G_TYPE_STRING: gchararray
G_TYPE_POINTER: gpointer
G_TYPE_BOXED: GBoxed
G_TYPE_PARAM: GParam
G_TYPE_OBJECT: GObject
G_TYPE_GTYPE: GType
G_TYPE_VARIANT: GVariant
G_TYPE_CHECKSUM: GChecksum (94162924034224)
G_TYPE_SOURCE: GSource