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<refentry id="gi-overview">
<refmeta>
  <refentrytitle role="top_of_page" id="gi-overview.top_of_page">Introspection Overview</refentrytitle>
  <manvolnum>3</manvolnum>
  <refmiscinfo>GI Library</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
  <refname>Overview</refname>
  <refpurpose>General overview of introspection</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>

<refsynopsisdiv>
The GObject-Introspection package contains of a few different parts:
  <itemizedlist>
    <listitem>
      <para>The GIR XML format - an XML format describing the exported
      C API including documentation
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>The GTypelib format - a binary format optimized for fast disk access
      and low memory usage
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>g-ir-scanner - parses C source code and gtk-doc comments and
      generates GIR XML files
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>g-ir-compiler - compiles GIR XML files into typelibs
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>libgirepository - library to access typelib from C
      </para>
    </listitem>
  </itemizedlist>

<para>A quick overview how the different components fits together:</para>

<inlinegraphic fileref="overview.png" format="PNG"></inlinegraphic>

</refsynopsisdiv>

</refentry>
