### Method

# Gio Initable init

since: 2.22

#### Declaration

    gboolean
    g_initable_init (
      GInitable* initable,
      GCancellable* cancellable,
      GError** error
    )

#### Description

Initializes the object implementing the interface.

This method is intended for language bindings. If writing in C, `g_initable_new()` should typically be used instead.

The object must be initialized before any real use after initial construction, either with this function or g_async_initable_init_async().

Implementations may also support cancellation. If `cancellable` is not `NULL`, then initialization can be cancelled by triggering the cancellable object from another thread. If the operation was cancelled, the error `G_IO_ERROR_CANCELLED` will be returned. If `cancellable` is not `NULL` and the object doesn’t support cancellable initialization the error `G_IO_ERROR_NOT_SUPPORTED` will be returned.

If the object is not initialized, or initialization returns with an error, then all operations on the object except `g_object_ref()` and `g_object_unref()` are considered to be invalid, and have undefined behaviour. See the [introduction][ginitable] for more details.

Callers should not assume that a class which implements `GInitable` can be initialized multiple times, unless the class explicitly documents itself as supporting this. Generally, a class’ implementation of `init()` can assume (and assert) that it will only be called once. Previously, this documentation recommended all `GInitable` implementations should be idempotent; that recommendation was relaxed in GLib 2.54.

If a class explicitly supports being initialized multiple times, it is recommended that the method is idempotent: multiple calls with the same arguments should return the same results. Only the first call initializes the object; further calls return the result of the first call.

One reason why a class might need to support idempotent initialization is if it is designed to be used via the singleton pattern, with a `GObjectClass`.constructor that sometimes returns an existing instance. In this pattern, a caller would expect to be able to call `g_initable_init()` on the result of g_object_new(), regardless of whether it is in fact a new instance.

Available since: 2.22

#### Parameters

`cancellable`

  Type: `GCancellable`

  Optional `GCancellable` object, `NULL` to ignore.

  The argument can be `NULL`.
  The data is owned by the caller of the method.

`error`

  Type: `GError **`

  The return location for a recoverable error.

  The argument can be `NULL`.
  If the return location is not `NULL`, then you must initialize it to a `NULL` `GError*`.
  The argument will be left initialized to `NULL` by the method if there are no errors.
  In case of error, the argument will be set to a newly allocated `GError`; the caller will take ownership of the data, and be responsible for freeing it.

#### Return value

Type: `gboolean`

`TRUE` if successful. If an error has occurred, this function will return `FALSE` and set `error` appropriately if present.