dconf (1)

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
COMMANDS
ENVIRONMENT
SEE ALSO

NAME

dconf - Simple tool for manipulating a dconf database

SYNOPSIS

dconf read KEY
dconf list DIR
dconf write KEY VALUE
dconf reset [-f] PATH
dconf compile OUTPUT KEYFILEDIR
dconf update
dconf watch PATH
dconf dump DIR
dconf load DIR
dconf help [COMMAND]

DESCRIPTION

The dconf program can perform various operations on a dconf database, such as reading or writing individual values or entire directories. This tool operates on dconf directly, without using gsettings schema information. Therefore, it cannot perform type and consistency checks on values. The gsettings(1) utility is an alternative if such checks are needed.

The DIR arguments must be directory paths (starting and ending with '/'), the KEY arguments must be key paths (starting, but not ending with '/') and the PATH arguments can be either directory or key paths.

The OUTPUT argument must the location to write a (binary) dconf database to and the KEYFILEDIR argument must be a .d directory containing keyfiles.

VALUE arguments must be in GVariant format, so e.g. a string must include explicit quotes: "'foo'". This format is also used when printing out values.

Note that dconf needs a D-Bus session bus connection to write changes to the dconf database.

COMMANDS

read

: Read the value of a key.

list

: List the sub-keys and sub-directories of a directory.

write

: Write a new value to a key.

reset

: Reset a key or an entire directory. For directories, -f must be specified.

compile

: Compile a binary database from keyfiles.
The result is always in little-endian byte order, so it can be safely installed in 'share'. If it is used on a big endian machine, dconf will automatically byteswap the contents on read.

update

: Update the system dconf databases.

watch

: Watch a key or directory for changes.

dump

: Dump an entire subpath to stdout. The output is in a keyfile-like format, with values in GVariant syntax.

load

: Populate a subpath from stdin. The expected format is the same as produced by dump.

help

: Display help and exit. If COMMAND is given, display help for this command.

ENVIRONMENT

DCONF_PROFILE

: This environment variable determines which dconf profile to use. See dconf(7).