How to generate GIR files from the Vala compiler?

Question

I am trying to create python bindings to a vala library using pygi with gobject introspection. However, I am having trouble generating the GIR files (that I am planning to compile to typelib files subsequently). According to the documentation valac should support generating GIR files.

Compiling the following

helloworld.vala

public struct Point {
    public double x;
    public double y;
}

public class Person {

    public int age = 32;

    public Person(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }

}

public int main() {

    var p = Point() { x=0.0, y=0.1 }; 
    stdout.printf("%f %f\n", p.x, p.y);

    var per = new Person(22);
    stdout.printf("%d\n", per.age);

    return 0;

}

with the command

valac helloworld.vala --gir=Hello-1.0.gir

doesn't create the Hello-1.0.gir file as one would expect. How can I generate the gir file?

Answer 1

To generate the GIR one has to put the functions to be exported under the same namespace

hello.vala

namespace Hello {
    public struct Point {
        public double x;
        public double y;
    }

    public class Person {

        public int age = 32;

        public Person(int age) {
            this.age = age;
        }
    }
}

public int main() {

    var p = Hello.Point() { x=0.0, y=0.1 }; 
    stdout.printf("%f %f\n", p.x, p.y);

    var per = new Hello.Person(22);
    stdout.printf("%d\n", per.age);

    return 0;

}

and then run the following command.

valac hello.vala --gir=Hello-1.0.gir --library Hello-1.0

This will generate a gir and a vapi file in the current directory.

Then to generate the typelib file, one needs to run

g-ir-compiler --shared-library=hello Hello-1.0.gir -o Hello-1.0.typelib

assuming the shared library has been compiled to libhello.so