Where does GSettings store its files?

Question

I would like to have a look at the files the dconf-editor uses to read/write settings, and I'm assuming that they are managed by gsettings. Where are these files stored on the system, and in what format?

Answer 1

Following some advice, I made a change and ran this:

find ~/.[!.]* -mmin -5

Among the displayed results was ~/.config/dconf/user. It's a binary file, a sort of database where GSettings stores stuff.

Answer 2

A better method would be strace to find out. Using a binary file, why for some wrong idea about performance, how dumb for multiple reasons! KDE does it right but it's not as light as xfce with nautilus!