Note: Some information in this document is outdated and will change before the release of Elektra 1.0.

Highlevel APIs

Highlevel

libelektra-highlevel.so

Contains the highlevel API. See also examples.

Notification

libelektra-notification.so

notification provides the notification API. Usage examples:

Base Elektra Libraries

Since version 0.8.15 libelektra is split into following libraries:

Libkdb

libelektra-kdb.so

Accesses the configuration files by orchestrating the plugins. The implementation lives in elektra.

It coordinates the interactions between the applications and the plugins.

loader contains source files that implement the plugin loader functionality as used by libelektra-kdb.

Libcore

libelektra-core.so
<kdbhelper.h>
<kdb.h> (key* and ks*)

Contains the fundamental data-structures every participant of Elektra needs to link against. It should be the only part that access the internal data structures. The implementation lives in elektra.

Libease

libelektra-ease.so

libease contains data-structure operations on top of libcore which do not depend on internals. Applications and plugins can choose to not link against it if they want to stay minimal. Its main goal is to make programming with Elektra easier if some extra kB are not an issue.

Libplugin

libelektra-plugin.so

libplugin contains elektraPlugin* symbols to be used by plugins.

Libmeta

libelektra-meta.so

libmeta contains metadata operations as described in METADATA.ini. Currently mainly contains legacy code and some generic metadata operations.

Libmerge

libelektra-merge.so

libmerge provides functionality for 3-way merges of keysets.

Libelektra

Is a legacy library that provides the same functionality as libelektra-kdb and libelektra-core. The sources can be found in libelektra.

Other Libraries

Libpluginprocess

libelektra-pluginprocess.so

libpluginprocess contains functions aiding in executing plugins in a separate process and communicating with those child processes. This child process is forked from Elektra's main process each time such plugin is used and gets closed again afterwards. It uses a simple communication protocol based on a KeySet that gets serialized through a pipe via the dump plugin to orchestrate the processes.

This is useful for plugins which cause memory leaks to be isolated in an own process. Furthermore this is useful for runtimes or libraries that cannot be reinitialized in the same process after they have been used.

Libtools

libtools is a high-level C++ shared-code for tools. It includes:

plugin interface
backend interface
3-way merge

Utility

libutility provides utility functions to be used in plugins.

Libinvoke

libelektra-invoke.so

libinvoke provides a simple API allowing us to call functions exported by plugins.

IO

libelektra-io.so

io provides the common API for using asynchronous I/O bindings.

Globbing

libelektra-globbing.so

globbing provides globbing functionality for Elektra.

The supported syntax is a superset of the syntax used by glob(7). The following extensions are supported:

#, when used as /#/ (or /#" at the end of the pattern), matches a valid array item
_ is the exact opposite; it matches anything but a valid array item
if the pattern ends with /__, matching key names may contain arbitrary suffixes

For more info take a look a the documentation of elektraKeyGlob() and elektraKsGlob().

Record

libelektra-record

record implements management functionality for session recording.