DBUS-SEND(1) User Commands DBUS-SEND(1)

NAME

dbus-send - Send a message to a message bus

SYNOPSIS

dbus-send [--system | --session | --bus=ADDRESS | --peer=ADDRESS]
[--dest=NAME] [--print-reply [=literal]]
[--reply-timeout=MSEC] [--type=TYPE] OBJECT_PATH
INTERFACE.MEMBER [CONTENTS...]

DESCRIPTION

The dbus-send command is used to send a message to a D-Bus message
bus. See http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/ for more
information about the big picture.

There are two well-known message buses: the systemwide message bus
(installed on many systems as the "messagebus" service) and the
per-user-login-session message bus (started each time a user logs
in). The --system and --session options direct dbus-send to send
messages to the system or session buses respectively. If neither is
specified, dbus-send sends to the session bus.

Nearly all uses of dbus-send must provide the --dest argument which
is the name of a connection on the bus to send the message to. If
--dest is omitted, no destination is set.

The object path and the name of the message to send must always be
specified. Following arguments, if any, are the message contents
(message arguments). These are given as type-specified values and may
include containers (arrays, dicts, and variants) as described below.

<contents> ::= <item> | <container> [ <item> | <container>...]
<item> ::= <type>:<value>
<container> ::= <array> | <dict> | <variant>
<array> ::= array:<type>:<value>[,<value>...]
<dict> ::= dict:<type>:<type>:<key>,<value>[,<key>,<value>...]
<variant> ::= variant:<type>:<value>
<type> ::= string | int16 | uint16 | int32 | uint32 | int64 | uint64 | double | byte | boolean | objpath

D-Bus supports more types than these, but dbus-send currently does
not. Also, dbus-send does not permit empty containers or nested
containers (e.g. arrays of variants).

Here is an example invocation:


dbus-send --dest=org.freedesktop.ExampleName \
/org/freedesktop/sample/object/name \
org.freedesktop.ExampleInterface.ExampleMethod \
int32:47 string:'hello world' double:65.32 \
array:string:"1st item","next item","last item" \
dict:string:int32:"one",1,"two",2,"three",3 \
variant:int32:-8 \
objpath:/org/freedesktop/sample/object/name


Note that the interface is separated from a method or signal name by
a dot, though in the actual protocol the interface and the interface
member are separate fields.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

--dest=NAME
Specify the name of the connection to receive the message.

--print-reply
Block for a reply to the message sent, and print any reply
received in a human-readable form. It also means the message type
(--type=) is method_call.

--print-reply=literal
Block for a reply to the message sent, and print the body of the
reply. If the reply is an object path or a string, it is printed
literally, with no punctuation, escape characters etc.

--reply-timeout=MSEC
Wait for a reply for up to MSEC milliseconds. The default is
implementation-defined, typically 25 seconds.

--system
Send to the system message bus.

--session
Send to the session message bus. (This is the default.)

--bus=ADDRESS
Register on a message bus at ADDRESS, typically a dbus-daemon.

--peer=ADDRESS
Send to a non-message-bus D-Bus server at ADDRESS. In this case
dbus-send will not call the Hello method.

--type=TYPE
Specify method_call or signal (defaults to "signal").

AUTHOR

dbus-send was written by Philip Blundell.

BUGS

Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker, see
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/

D-Bus 1.12.28 01/10/2025 DBUS-SEND(1)