How to interpret the contents of ~/.gconf?

Question

Consider a key like

/apps/metacity/global_keybindings/cycle_windows

I can access this this key using gconf-editor. However when I cd to ~/.gconf/apps/metacity I find an empty file named %gconf.xml and a directory called general which contanains another %conf.xml file which is like this:

<gconf>
    <entry name="num_workspaces" mtime="an integer here" type="int" value="4"/>
</gconf>

My questions are,

• If the keys are stored somewhere else other than .gconf what is the purpose of this directory and how can I interpret the contents of it?
• The other question is, where are these keys stored and how can I access them?

P.S. I'm running 12.04 on virtual machine.

Answer 1

~/.gconf subfolders contain only the settings that were modified by the user. Original gconf settings can be found in /usr/share/gconf/. For example, the key /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/ you mentioned in your question is created using /usr/share/gconf/schemas/metacity.schemas. And when the user changes some settings in this key, they go to ~/.gconf/apps/metacity/global_keybindings/%gconf.xml.

BTW, gconf is superseded by dconf. Though some settings weren't transferred yet.