<title>C Plugins tutorial</title>

<title>Introduction</title>

C plugins are native plugins. They have complete access to all of the API,

and can do basically whatever they want. All of the protocol plugins are

also written in C.

<title>Getting Started</title>

To develop a plugin you need to have the libpurple and (for UI plugins) the

Pidgin/Finch source code or development headers. It is generally a good idea

to compile against the same version of Pidgin that you are running. You may

also want to develop against the code in our Mercurial repository if you need

to use a new feature. Please do not abuse our Mercurial repository, however.

<title>An Example</title>

I know every tutorial has a hello world, so why should libpurple be any

different?

<title>Hello World!</title>

#include &lt;purple.h&gt;

static PurplePluginInfo *

plugin_query(GError **error)

{

const gchar * const authors[] = {

"Author Name &lt;e@mail&gt;",

NULL

};

/* For specific notes on the meanings of each of these members, consult the

C Plugin Howto on the website. */

return purple_plugin_info_new (

"name", "Hello World!",

"version", VERSION,

"category", "Example",

"summary", "Hello World Plugin",

"description", "Hello World Plugin",

"authors", authors,

"website", "http://helloworld.tld",

"abi-version", PURPLE_ABI_VERSION,

NULL

);

}

static gboolean

plugin_load(PurplePlugin *plugin, GError **error)

{

purple_notify_message(plugin, PURPLE_NOTIFY_MSG_INFO, "Hello World!",

"This is the Hello World! plugin :)",

NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);

return TRUE;

}

static gboolean

plugin_unload(PurplePlugin *plugin, GError **error)

{

return TRUE;

}

PURPLE_PLUGIN_INIT(hello_world, plugin_query, plugin_load, plugin_unload);

Okay, so what does all this mean? We start off by including purple.h. This

file includes all the libpurple header files.

<literal>plugin_query</literal>, <literal>plugin_load</literal> and

<literal>plugin_unload</literal> must be implemented in every plugin. Each of

these functions can return an error on failure by using

<function>g_set_error()</function> on the <literal>error</literal> argument.

<literal>plugin_query</literal> is called when the plugin is probed by the

plugin system, and returns various information about the plugin in form of a

newly created <literal>PurplePluginInfo</literal> instance. For a list of all

available properties, see

<link linkend="purple-plugin-info-new"><function>purple_plugin_info_new()</function></link>.

<literal>plugin_load</literal> is called when the plugin is loaded so that you

can initialize any variables, register dynamic types, and so on. Plugins may

also want to add their preferences to the pref tree--more about that later.

In this plugin we'll just use it to display a message.

<literal>plugin_unload</literal> is called when the plugin is unloaded, and we

can use it to wrap up everything, and free our variables.

Finally we have

<link linkend="PURPLE-PLUGIN-INIT:CAPS"><function>PURPLE_PLUGIN_INIT()</function></link>.

It is a macro that every plugin MUST have. It tells libpurple some basic

things about your plugin, like what name to use if the plugin is compiled

statically, along with the <literal>plugin_query</literal>,

<literal>plugin_load</literal>, and <literal>plugin_unload</literal>

functions.