dbus-send(1)

NAME

   dbus-send - Send a message to a message bus

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

   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 | uint 16 | 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.

OPTIONS

   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.)

   --address=ADDRESS
       Send to ADDRESS.

   --type=TYPE
       Specify method_call or signal (defaults to "signal").

AUTHOR

   dbus-send was written by Philip Blundell.

BUGS

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

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