dconf

Print a specific key value

$ dconf read [/path/to/key]

$ dconf list [/path/to/directory/]

$ dconf write [/path/to/key] "[value]"

$ dconf reset [/path/to/key]

$ dconf watch [/path/to/key|/path/to/directory/]

$ dconf dump [/path/to/directory/]

dconf read [-d] KEY

dconf list DIR

dconf write KEY VALUE

dconf reset [-f] PATH

dconf compile OUTPUT KEYFILEDIR

dconf update [DBDIR]

dconf watch PATH

dconf dump DIR

dconf load [-f] DIR

dconf help [COMMAND]

The dconf program can perform various operations on a dconf database, such as reading or writing individual values or entire directories. This tool operates on dconf directly, without using gsettings schema information. Therefore, it cannot perform type and consistency checks on values. The gsettings(1) utility is an alternative if such checks are needed.

The DIR arguments must be directory paths (starting and ending with /), the KEY arguments must be key paths (starting, but not ending with /) and the PATH arguments can be either directory or key paths.

The OUTPUT argument must the location to write a (binary) dconf database to and the KEYFILEDIR argument must be a .d directory containing keyfiles.

VALUE arguments must be in GVariant format, so e.g. a string must include explicit quotes: "foo". This format is also used when printing out values.

Note that dconf needs a D-Bus session bus connection to write changes to the dconf database.

read

Read the value of a key.

list

List the sub-keys and sub-directories of a directory.

write

Write a new value to a key.

reset

Reset a key or an entire directory. For directories, -f must be specified.

compile

Compile a binary database from keyfiles.

The result is always in little-endian byte order, so it can be safely installed in share. If it is used on a big endian machine, dconf will automatically byteswap the contents on read.

update

Update the system dconf databases.

watch

Watch a key or directory for changes.

dump

Dump an entire subpath to stdout. The output is in a keyfile-like format, with values in GVariant syntax.

load

Populate a subpath from stdin. The expected format is the same as produced by dump. Attempting to change non-writable keys cancels the load command. To ignore changes to non-writable keys instead, use -f.

help

Display help and exit. If COMMAND is given, display help for this command.

DCONF_PROFILE

This environment variable determines which dconf profile to use. See dconf(7).

dconf(7), gsettings(1), dconf-editor(1)