</sect1>
- <sect1 id="message-protocol">
- <title>Message Protocol</title>
-
- <para>
- A <firstterm>message</firstterm> consists of a
- <firstterm>header</firstterm> and a <firstterm>body</firstterm>. If you
- think of a message as a package, the header is the address, and the body
- contains the package contents. The message delivery system uses the header
- information to figure out where to send the message and how to interpret
- it; the recipient interprets the body of the message.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- The body of the message is made up of zero or more
- <firstterm>arguments</firstterm>, which are typed values, such as an
- integer or a byte array.
- </para>
+ <sect1 id="type-system">
+ <title>Type System</title>
<para>
- Both header and body use the same type system and format for
- serializing data. Each type of value has a wire format.
+ D-Bus has a type system, in which values of various types can be
+ serialized into a sequence of bytes referred to as the
+ <firstterm>wire format</firstterm> in a standard way.
Converting a value from some other representation into the wire
format is called <firstterm>marshaling</firstterm> and converting
it back from the wire format is <firstterm>unmarshaling</firstterm>.
</sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="message-protocol">
+ <title>Message Protocol</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A <firstterm>message</firstterm> consists of a
+ <firstterm>header</firstterm> and a <firstterm>body</firstterm>. If you
+ think of a message as a package, the header is the address, and the body
+ contains the package contents. The message delivery system uses the header
+ information to figure out where to send the message and how to interpret
+ it; the recipient interprets the body of the message.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The body of the message is made up of zero or more
+ <firstterm>arguments</firstterm>, which are typed values, such as an
+ integer or a byte array.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Both header and body use the D-Bus <link linkend="type-system">type
+ system</link> and format for serializing data.
+ </para>
+
<sect2 id="message-protocol-messages">
<title>Message Format</title>