Upstream development

dbus-python is developed at freedesktop.org using git. See UsingGit for some details.

Anonymous access

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/dbus/dbus-python

Committer access (requires freedesktop.org shell account)

git clone git+ssh://git.freedesktop.org/git/dbus/dbus-python

Modules

dbus, dbus.service and dbus.mainloop are core public API.

dbus.lowlevel provides a lower-level public API for advanced use.

dbus.mainloop.glib is the public API for the GLib main loop integration.

dbus.types and dbus.exceptions are mainly for backwards compatibility - use dbus instead in new code. Ditto dbus.glib.

dbus._dbus, dbus.introspect_parser, dbus.proxies are internal implementation details.

_dbus_bindings is the real implementation of the Python/libdbus integration, while _dbus_bindings is the real implementation of Python/libdbus-glib integration. Neither is public API, although some of the classes and functions are exposed as public API in other modules.

Threading/locking model

All Python functions must be called with the GIL (obviously).

Before calling into any D-Bus function that can block, release the GIL; as well as the usual "be nice to other threads", D-Bus does its own locking and we don't want to deadlock with it. Most Connection methods can block.

Other notes

Code needs to be Python 2.5 compatible - use Py_ssize_t where appropriate. See http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0353/ for details.

Indentation and other holy wars

Python code is meant to follow PEP8, and has 4-space indentation, no hard tabs.

C code is meant to follow what PEP7 refers to as "Python 3000" style - 4-space indentation, no hard tabs, otherwise consistent with historical Python 2.x code.

Docstrings etc. are reStructuredText.