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24 <a name="gtype-non-instantiable"></a>Non-instantiable non-classed fundamental types</h2></div></div></div>
25 <p>
26           A lot of types are not instantiable by the type system and do not have
27           a class. Most of these types are fundamental trivial types such as <span class="emphasis"><em>gchar</em></span>, 
28           registered in <code class="function">_g_value_types_init</code> (in <code class="filename">gvaluetypes.c</code>).
29         </p>
30 <p>
31           To register such a type in the type system, you just need to fill the 
32           <a class="link" href="gobject-Type-Information.html#GTypeInfo" title="struct GTypeInfo"><span class="type">GTypeInfo</span></a> structure with zeros since these types are also most of the time
33           fundamental:
34           </p>
35 <pre class="programlisting">
36   GTypeInfo info = {
37     0,                                /* class_size */
38     NULL,                        /* base_init */
39     NULL,                        /* base_destroy */
40     NULL,                        /* class_init */
41     NULL,                        /* class_destroy */
42     NULL,                        /* class_data */
43     0,                                /* instance_size */
44     0,                                /* n_preallocs */
45     NULL,                        /* instance_init */
46     NULL,                        /* value_table */
47   };
48   static const GTypeValueTable value_table = {
49     value_init_long0,                /* value_init */
50     NULL,                        /* value_free */
51     value_copy_long0,                /* value_copy */
52     NULL,                        /* value_peek_pointer */
53     "i",                        /* collect_format */
54     value_collect_int,        /* collect_value */
55     "p",                        /* lcopy_format */
56     value_lcopy_char,                /* lcopy_value */
57   };
58   info.value_table = &amp;value_table;
59   type = g_type_register_fundamental (G_TYPE_CHAR, "gchar", &amp;info, &amp;finfo, 0);
60           </pre>
61 <p>
62         </p>
63 <p>
64           Having non-instantiable types might seem a bit useless: what good is a type
65           if you cannot instantiate an instance of that type ? Most of these types
66           are used in conjunction with <a class="link" href="gobject-Generic-values.html#GValue" title="GValue"><span class="type">GValue</span></a>s: a GValue is initialized
67           with an integer or a string and it is passed around by using the registered 
68           type's value_table. <a class="link" href="gobject-Generic-values.html#GValue" title="GValue"><span class="type">GValue</span></a>s (and by extension these trivial fundamental
69           types) are most useful when used in conjunction with object properties and signals.
70         </p>
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