diff --git a/src/functions.rs b/src/functions.rs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c0f2f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/functions.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/bindings.rs"));
+
+/// Initialized libnotify. This must be called before any other functions.
+///
+/// Starting from 0.8, if the provided app_name is NULL, libnotify will try to figure it out from the running application. Before it was not allowed, and was causing libnotify not to be initialized.
+///
+/// # Returns
+/// True if successful, false if libnotify fails to initialize, error if string contains \0
+pub fn init<'a, T>(app_name: T) -> Result<bool, Box<dyn std::error::Error>>
+where
+    T: Into<Option<&'a str>>,
+{
+    let app_name = app_name
+        .into()
+        .map(|app_name| std::ffi::CString::new(app_name))
+        .transpose()?;
+
+    let result = unsafe {
+        notify_init(
+            app_name
+                .as_ref()
+                .map_or(std::ptr::null(), |app_name| app_name.as_ptr()),
+        ) != 0
+    };
+
+    Ok(result)
+}