Where is the cairo context object cr declared?

Question

Where, in the following zetcode, is the cairo context cr declared?

#include <cairo.h>
#include <gtk/gtk.h>

static void do_drawing(cairo_t *);

struct {
  int count;
  double coordx[100];
  double coordy[100];
} glob;

static gboolean on_draw_event(GtkWidget *widget, cairo_t *cr, 
    gpointer user_data)
{
  do_drawing(cr);

  return FALSE;
}

static void do_drawing(cairo_t *cr)
{
  cairo_set_source_rgb(cr, 0, 0, 0);
  cairo_set_line_width(cr, 0.5);

  int i, j;
  for (i = 0; i <= glob.count - 1; i++ ) {
      for (j = 0; j <= glob.count - 1; j++ ) {
          cairo_move_to(cr, glob.coordx[i], glob.coordy[i]);
          cairo_line_to(cr, glob.coordx[j], glob.coordy[j]);
      }
  }

  glob.count = 0;
  cairo_stroke(cr);    
}

static gboolean clicked(GtkWidget *widget, GdkEventButton *event,
    gpointer user_data)
{
    if (event->button == 1) {
        glob.coordx[glob.count] = event->x;
        glob.coordy[glob.count++] = event->y;
    }

    if (event->button == 3) {
        gtk_widget_queue_draw(widget);
    }

    return TRUE;
}


int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  GtkWidget *window;
  GtkWidget *darea;

  glob.count = 0;

  gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

  window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

  darea = gtk_drawing_area_new();
  gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), darea);

  gtk_widget_add_events(window, GDK_BUTTON_PRESS_MASK);

  g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(darea), "draw", 
      G_CALLBACK(on_draw_event), NULL); 
  g_signal_connect(window, "destroy",
      G_CALLBACK(gtk_main_quit), NULL);  

  g_signal_connect(window, "button-press-event", 
      G_CALLBACK(clicked), NULL);

  gtk_window_set_position(GTK_WINDOW(window), GTK_WIN_POS_CENTER);
  gtk_window_set_default_size(GTK_WINDOW(window), 400, 300); 
  gtk_window_set_title(GTK_WINDOW(window), "Lines");

  gtk_widget_show_all(window);

  gtk_main();

  return 0;
}

Is cairo context cr automatically declared in the code and associated with the darea (unfortunate name for drawing area) when we call the function

  g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(darea), "draw", 
      G_CALLBACK(on_draw_event), NULL);

?

Answer 1

The widget will emit the signal and pass it's internal cairo context. When you connect a callback to handle the signal, cairo context is sent by the widget, you receive it and work on it.

Draw signal belongs to Gtk Widget class:

gboolean user_function (GtkWidget *widget, CairoContext *cr, gpointer user_data)

From the draw documentation:

This signal is emitted when a widget is supposed to render itself. The widget 's top left corner must be painted at the origin of the passed in context and be sized to the values returned by gtk_widget_get_allocated_width() and gtk_widget_get_allocated_height().

Signal handlers connected to this signal can modify the cairo context passed as cr in any way they like and don't need to restore it. The signal emission takes care of calling cairo_save() before and cairo_restore() after invoking the handler.

The signal handler will get a cr with a clip region already set to the widget's dirty region, i.e. to the area that needs repainting. Complicated widgets that want to avoid redrawing themselves completely can get the full extents of the clip region with gdk_cairo_get_clip_rectangle(), or they can get a finer-grained representation of the dirty region with cairo_copy_clip_rectangle_list().