<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!-- Copyright (c) 2007-2010 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies) All rights reserved. -->

<!-- This component and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the License 

"Eclipse Public License v1.0" which accompanies this distribution, 

and is available at the URL "http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html". -->

<!-- Initial Contributors:

    Nokia Corporation - initial contribution.

Contributors: 

-->

<!DOCTYPE concept

  PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">

<concept id="GUID-34EF6527-14D0-5C8B-9E20-A3A3B3320054" xml:lang="en"><title>SIF Overview</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>

<section id="GUID-A3BAEDB1-D62E-4877-84E2-8C247FF9DDFF"><title>Purpose</title> <p>SIF provides uniform interfaces for installation of software

and management of software Symbian platform devices regardless of

the type of a package. The uniform interfaces provided by SIF enable: </p> <ul>

<li id="GUID-3A207AF4-C957-566D-94A6-0EE9D4FC46A8"><p>Installation

of software, for example SIS or JAR files. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-85E29288-459D-5FE2-8668-E32848B4AF19"><p>Management of

software, for example removing an existing software component installed

on a device. </p> </li>

<li id="GUID-F8C01B68-14DF-5631-A0C5-C27BB1A005E7"><p>Extracting package

information. </p> </li>

</ul> </section>

<section id="GUID-ED363D15-01A7-4D9D-A8DF-F4D9A0618788"><title>Architecture</title> <p>The following diagram illustrates the SIF interaction with SWI,

AppArc and other components of the Universal Software Installation

Framework : </p><fig id="GUID-2F4266C8-C5C7-44A3-A65A-4448919BBEDF">

<title>SIF interaction diagram</title>

<image href="GUID-9B97E076-22CB-434A-B16A-E4CE3A859F05_d0e41292_href.jpg" placement="inline"/>

</fig><fig id="GUID-14AE4786-0AFB-4B5C-9306-1B112985FF7B">

<image href="GUID-41CE73A7-4820-417D-8AD7-92F9DB9C552A_d0e41296_href.jpg" placement="inline"/>

</fig> <p> <b>SIF Transport Library</b>  </p> <p>This is a client-server

framework used to send and receive SIF requests across a process boundary.

It significantly reduces the time needed to implement an installer

client and a server for sending and receiving SIF requests. The SIF

Transport Library consists of a SIF Transport Client and a Server. </p> <p>The SIF Transport Client sends software management requests (for

example, installation, uninstallation, activation, deactivation and

so on) across the process boundary to a specified SIF Transport Server.

The SIF Transport Server processes the requests from the SIF Transport

Client by instantiating a SIF Transport session object and hands over

further processing to it. </p> <p> <b>SIF Utility library</b>  </p> <p>This library provides an API for uninstalling a software component

from the system and is for simple installers. It removes the component

from the System Component Registry (SCR) and deletes its files from

the file system. </p> <p> <b>SIF Launcher</b>  </p> <p>SIF Launcher

is a SIF component that handles installation requests from the AppArc

APIs. Installation requests are issued by generic clients, such as

file or web browsers. When the user clicks on a file or link, a browser

may use <xref href="GUID-5EEE8745-F483-33C0-A5B1-AEB5544DE2BA.dita#GUID-5EEE8745-F483-33C0-A5B1-AEB5544DE2BA/GUID-FE6E7F9F-86AB-398E-A979-90F1DAC93E71"><apiname>RApaLsSession::StartDocument()</apiname></xref> to start

the SIF Launcher automatically.</p> <p><b>Notifier Framework</b></p><p>There is a need to receive progress notifications during package

management operations, such as installation, upgradation and uninstallion.

The native and non-native installers follow legacy mechanisms to publish

the installation context.  If each installer provides a different

publication mechanism, the observers of the events need to make additional

changes relevant to the installer. To overcome this redundancy, SIF

provides a unified notification mechanism that makes receiving progress

notifications simpler. </p><p>The Notifier framework delivers the

start, progress and completion status of SIF operation (install or

uninstall) to registered clients in a unified mechanism. The Publish

and Subscribe Keys defined by the Universal Software Install Framework

(USIF) can be used by all installers to <xref href="GUID-6A9E486A-6C1B-4E31-832A-FD39AF041817.dita">publish the progress

of operations</xref>. The clients must <xref href="GUID-FDA575AB-F5A5-4244-B47C-F1B1794F09F6.dita">subscribe to receive

the progress notifications</xref>.</p><p> A utility library is provided

with APIs that set and publish the SIF operation progress. Installers

and client applications can use these APIs to publish and subscribe

for install, upgrade and uninstall status notifications.</p></section>

<section id="GUID-B0AD8013-8166-411C-BA70-E0FC494094B2"><title>Key

Classes</title> <p>The following table summarizes the key classes

of SIF: </p> <table id="GUID-95FAE876-4A42-5AFA-8D92-B14E4B3C3B8B">

<tgroup cols="2"><colspec colname="col0"/><colspec colname="col1"/>

<thead>

<row>

<entry>Class Name</entry>

<entry>Description</entry>

</row>

</thead>

<tbody>

<row>

<entry><p> <xref href="GUID-1A295877-CBEF-3C5C-A72E-FFB5D2E57B22.dita"><apiname>RSoftwareInstall</apiname></xref>  </p> </entry>

<entry><p>Provides an asynchronous interface to SIF. This class wraps

all the details of client-server communication with the SIF server

residing in a separate process. </p> </entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p> <xref href="GUID-CD380D01-8649-36E4-8435-C6F600D5A5CF.dita"><apiname>CSifPlugin</apiname></xref>  </p> </entry>

<entry><p>Is an abstract SIF plug-in

interface. Derived classes must implement the functions of the interface

for each particular software type. </p> </entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p> <xref href="GUID-D526646E-45DB-3DC4-9384-CFF02C590F74.dita"><apiname>RSifTransportClient</apiname></xref>  </p> </entry>

<entry><p>Is a client side of the SIF Transport. This class sends

software management requests across the process boundary to a specified

Transport Server. </p> </entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p> <xref href="GUID-6C066A48-4889-302B-879B-4A07552C3AFC.dita"><apiname>CSifTransportTask</apiname></xref>  </p> </entry>

<entry><p>Defines an abstract interface for SIF Transport tasks. It

is the core class of the SIF Transport library. Transport tasks are

instantiated and run to handle incoming software management requests. </p> </entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-F1D2CE7E-B5B9-3E35-B648-55F1B24E6272.dita"><apiname>CSifOperationStartData</apiname></xref></p></entry>

<entry><p>Contains basic information

about packages to be installed or uninstalled.</p></entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-4F0E57D3-CE4C-3A41-951B-F2BB43E7BA34.dita"><apiname>CSifOperationEndData</apiname></xref> </p></entry>

<entry><p>Contains the error status

information after an installation or uninstallation.</p></entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-DBEB6AEF-2128-3566-93AA-3CDB5D554B1E.dita"><apiname>CSifOperationProgressData</apiname></xref></p></entry>

<entry><p>Provides the progress

status.</p></entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-59E1372C-F4F8-3762-B6D9-B92BB5F53FC6.dita"><apiname>CPublishSifOperationInfo</apiname></xref></p></entry>

<entry><p>Is used by installers

to publish a single install, uninstall or update operation information.</p></entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-4683B704-D21C-3D42-82BB-2B4B88B4974C.dita"><apiname>MSifOperationsHandler</apiname></xref></p></entry>

<entry><p>Is an interface class

required to be implemented by the client class to receive notifications.

This class has functions that notify about the SIF operation start,

end and progress updates.</p></entry>

</row>

<row>

<entry><p><xref href="GUID-33D234E5-2970-3521-BDB9-EE29C9165856.dita"><apiname>CSifOperationsNotifier</apiname></xref></p></entry>

<entry><p> An object of the class

is created for carrying out subscription to notification. </p></entry>

</row>

</tbody>

</tgroup>

</table> </section>

<section id="GUID-7B431AC3-6B81-40A1-98E4-31CA7B20B5DE"><title>Typical

uses</title> <p>You can use the APIs provided by SIF to <xref href="GUID-51EDBA17-41AF-58FB-A96F-D5A136F83977.dita">create an installer</xref> . When you use SIF with SCR you can perform <xref href="GUID-8EE40A1A-7905-522B-A1A1-3F4ED053B042.dita">application management

functions</xref> such as listing software components on a device and

extracting package information about a software component. </p> </section>

</conbody><related-links>

<link href="GUID-B2BD19A4-132E-5D5C-8870-04BADB6E7815.dita"><linktext>SIF

Tutorial</linktext></link>

<link href="GUID-2AB7F53A-5EDF-574D-866D-EF2592881559.dita"><linktext>Configuring

the SIF Launcher</linktext></link>

</related-links></concept>