dbus-send

dbus-send [--system | --session | --bus=ADDRESS | --peer=ADDRESS] [--sender=NAME] [--dest=NAME] [--print-reply [=literal]] [--reply-timeout=MSEC] [--type=TYPE] OBJECT_PATH INTERFACE.MEMBER [CONTENTS...]

The dbus-send command is used to send a message to a D-Bus message bus. See http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/ for more information about the big picture.

There are two well-known message buses: the systemwide message bus (installed on many systems as the "messagebus" service) and the per-user-login-session message bus (started each time a user logs in). The --system and --session options direct dbus-send to send messages to the system or session buses respectively. If neither is specified, dbus-send sends to the session bus.

Nearly all uses of dbus-send must provide the --dest argument which is the name of a connection on the bus to send the message to. If --dest is omitted, no destination is set.

The object path and the name of the message to send must always be specified. Following arguments, if any, are the message contents (message arguments). These are given as type-specified values and may include containers (arrays, dicts, and variants) as described below.

<contents>   ::= <item> | <container> [ <item> | <container>...]
<item>       ::= <type>:<value>
<container>  ::= <array> | <dict> | <variant>
<array>      ::= array:<type>:<value>[,<value>...]
<dict>       ::= dict:<type>:<type>:<key>,<value>[,<key>,<value>...]
<variant>    ::= variant:<type>:<value>
<type>       ::= string | int16 | uint16 | int32 | uint32 | int64 | uint64 | double | byte | boolean | objpath

D-Bus supports more types than these, but dbus-send currently does not. Also, dbus-send does not permit empty containers or nested containers (e.g. arrays of variants).

Here is an example invocation:

  dbus-send --dest=org.freedesktop.ExampleName               \
            /org/freedesktop/sample/object/name              \
            org.freedesktop.ExampleInterface.ExampleMethod   \
            int32:47 string:hello world double:65.32       \
            array:string:"1st item","next item","last item"  \
            dict:string:int32:"one",1,"two",2,"three",3      \
            variant:int32:-8                                 \
            objpath:/org/freedesktop/sample/object/name

Note that the interface is separated from a method or signal name by a dot, though in the actual protocol the interface and the interface member are separate fields.

The following options are supported:

--dest=NAME

Specify the name of the connection to receive the message.

--print-reply

Block for a reply to the message sent, and print any reply received in a human-readable form. It also means the message type (--type=) is method_call.

--print-reply=literal

Block for a reply to the message sent, and print the body of the reply. If the reply is an object path or a string, it is printed literally, with no punctuation, escape characters etc.

--reply-timeout=MSEC

Wait for a reply for up to MSEC milliseconds. The default is implementation‐defined, typically 25 seconds.

--system

Send to the system message bus.

--session

Send to the session message bus. (This is the default.)

--bus=ADDRESS

Register on a message bus at ADDRESS, typically a dbus-daemon.

--peer=ADDRESS

Send to a non-message-bus D-Bus server at ADDRESS. In this case dbus-send will not call the Hello method.

--sender=NAME

Request ownership of name NAME before sending the message. The name will be released when dbus-send exits.

--type=TYPE

Specify method_call or signal (defaults to "signal").

Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker, see http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/

dbus-send was written by Philip Blundell.