Bug#508375: the statement "gdk-pixbuf library does not need to be initialized" is wrong

[David Madore]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 05:38:51PM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le mercredi 10 décembre 2008 à 17:01 +0100, David Madore a écrit :
> > the statement: "The gdk-pixbuf library does not need to be
> > initialized".  This is false, as the following trivial program shows:
> 
> > (process:9342): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.16.6/gobject/gtype.c:2248: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
> 
> Actually this is true, the thing that needs to be initialized here is
> GObject. This is done with a call to g_type_init(); before doing
> anything else.

It is still wrong that gdk-pixbuf does not need to be initialized:
what you are claiming is that gdk-pixbuf does not need to be
initialized _beyond initializing gobject_ (which itself is done by
calling g_type_init()): that is true, but that is not what the
gdk-pixbuf documentation states.  In fact, it does not mention gobject
at all.

The gdk-pixbuf documentation should say something like "The gdk-pixbuf
library itself does not need to be initialized, but it depends on
gobject having been previously initialized (see the gobject
documentation for how to do this)".

It is particularly important to clarify this fact, because gtk, in
contrast to gdk-pixbuf, initializes its dependencies (such as gobject)
when gtk_init() is invoked, so does not need a call to g_type_init().
This difference is confusing and surprising, and should be properly
underlined in the documentation.

-- 
     David A. Madore
    (david.madore at ens.fr,
     http://www.madore.org/~david/ )