## Gst

Gst — Media library supporting arbitrary formats and filter graphs.

## Synopsis

    #include <gst/gst.h>

    void                gst_init                            (int *argc,
                                                             char **argv[]);
    gboolean            gst_init_check                      (int *argc,
                                                             char **argv[],
                                                             GError **err);
    GOptionGroup *      gst_init_get_option_group           (void);
    gboolean            gst_is_initialized                  (void);
    void                gst_deinit                          (void);
    void                gst_version                         (guint *major,
                                                             guint *minor,
                                                             guint *micro,
                                                             guint *nano);
    gchar *             gst_version_string                  (void);
    gboolean            gst_segtrap_is_enabled              (void);
    void                gst_segtrap_set_enabled             (gboolean enabled);
    gboolean            gst_registry_fork_is_enabled        (void);
    void                gst_registry_fork_set_enabled       (gboolean enabled);
    gboolean            gst_update_registry                 (void);

## Description

GStreamer is a framework for constructing graphs of various filters (termed elements here) that will handle streaming media. Any discreet (packetizable) media type is supported, with provisions for automatically determining source type. Formatting/framing information is provided with a powerful negotiation framework. Plugins are heavily used to provide for all elements, allowing one to construct plugins outside of the GST library, even released binary-only if license require (please don't). GStreamer covers a wide range of use cases including: playback, recording, editing, serving streams, voice over ip and video calls.

The GStreamer library should be initialized with `gst_init()` before it can be used. You should pass pointers to the main argc and argv variables so that GStreamer can process its own command line options, as shown in the following example.

Example 1. Initializing the gstreamer library

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    int
    main (int argc, char *argv[])
    {
      // initialize the GStreamer library
      gst_init (&argc, &argv);
      ...
    }

It's allowed to pass two NULL pointers to `gst_init()` in case you don't want to pass the command line args to GStreamer.

You can also use GOption to initialize your own parameters as shown in the next code fragment:

Example 2. Initializing own parameters when initializing gstreamer

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    static gboolean stats = FALSE;
    ...
    int
    main (int argc, char *argv[])
    {
     GOptionEntry options[] = {
      {"tags", 't', 0, G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, &tags,
          N_("Output tags (also known as metadata)"), NULL},
      {NULL}
     };
     // must initialise the threading system before using any other GLib funtion
     if (!g_thread_supported ())
       g_thread_init (NULL);
     ctx = g_option_context_new ("[ADDITIONAL ARGUMENTS]");
     g_option_context_add_main_entries (ctx, options, GETTEXT_PACKAGE);
     g_option_context_add_group (ctx, gst_init_get_option_group ());
     if (!g_option_context_parse (ctx, &argc, &argv, &err)) {
       g_print ("Error initializing: %s\n", GST_STR_NULL (err->message));
       exit (1);
     }
     g_option_context_free (ctx);
    ...
    }

Use `gst_version()` to query the library version at runtime or use the GST_VERSION_* macros to find the version at compile time. Optionally `gst_version_string()` returns a printable string.

The `gst_deinit()` call is used to clean up all internal resources used by GStreamer. It is mostly used in unit tests to check for leaks.

Last reviewed on 2006-08-11 (0.10.10)

## Details

### gst_init ()

    void                gst_init                            (int *argc,
                                                             char **argv[]);

Initializes the GStreamer library, setting up internal path lists, registering built-in elements, and loading standard plugins.

Unless the plugin registry is disabled at compile time, the registry will be loaded. By default this will also check if the registry cache needs to be updated and rescan all plugins if needed. See `gst_update_registry()` for details and section Running GStreamer Applications for how to disable automatic registry updates.

This function should be called before calling any other GLib functions. If this is not an option, your program must initialise the GLib thread system using `g_thread_init()` before any other GLib functions are called.

### Note

This function will terminate your program if it was unable to initialize GStreamer for some reason. If you want your program to fall back, use `gst_init_check()` instead.

WARNING: This function does not work in the same way as corresponding functions in other glib-style libraries, such as `gtk_init()`. In particular, unknown command line options cause this function to abort program execution.

`argc` : | pointer to application's argc. [inout][allow-none]
`argv` : | pointer to application's argv. [inout][array length=argc][allow-none]

### gst_init_check ()

    gboolean            gst_init_check                      (int *argc,
                                                             char **argv[],
                                                             GError **err);

Initializes the GStreamer library, setting up internal path lists, registering built-in elements, and loading standard plugins.

This function will return `FALSE` if GStreamer could not be initialized for some reason. If you want your program to fail fatally, use `gst_init()` instead.

This function should be called before calling any other GLib functions. If this is not an option, your program must initialise the GLib thread system using `g_thread_init()` before any other GLib functions are called.

`argc` : | pointer to application's argc. [inout][allow-none]
`argv` : | pointer to application's argv. [inout][array length=argc][allow-none]
`err` : | pointer to a GError to which a message will be posted on error
Returns : | `TRUE` if GStreamer could be initialized.

### gst_init_get_option_group ()

    GOptionGroup *      gst_init_get_option_group           (void);

Returns a GOptionGroup with GStreamer's argument specifications. The group is set up to use standard GOption callbacks, so when using this group in combination with GOption parsing methods, all argument parsing and initialization is automated.

This function is useful if you want to integrate GStreamer with other libraries that use GOption (see `g_option_context_add_group()` ).

If you use this function, you should make sure you initialise the GLib threading system as one of the very first things in your program (see the example at the beginning of this section).

Returns : | a pointer to GStreamer's option group. [transfer full]

### gst_is_initialized ()

    gboolean            gst_is_initialized                  (void);

Use this function to check if GStreamer has been initialized with `gst_init()` or `gst_init_check()`.

Returns : | TRUE if initialization has been done, FALSE otherwise.

Since 0.10.31

### gst_deinit ()

    void                gst_deinit                          (void);

Clean up any resources created by GStreamer in `gst_init()`.

It is normally not needed to call this function in a normal application as the resources will automatically be freed when the program terminates. This function is therefore mostly used by testsuites and other memory profiling tools.

After this call GStreamer (including this method) should not be used anymore.

### gst_version ()

    void                gst_version                         (guint *major,
                                                             guint *minor,
                                                             guint *micro,
                                                             guint *nano);

Gets the version number of the GStreamer library.

`major` : | pointer to a guint to store the major version number. [out]
`minor` : | pointer to a guint to store the minor version number. [out]
`micro` : | pointer to a guint to store the micro version number. [out]
`nano` : | pointer to a guint to store the nano version number. [out]

### gst_version_string ()

    gchar *             gst_version_string                  (void);

This function returns a string that is useful for describing this version of GStreamer to the outside world: user agent strings, logging, ...

Returns : | a newly allocated string describing this version of GStreamer. [transfer full]

### gst_segtrap_is_enabled ()

    gboolean            gst_segtrap_is_enabled              (void);

Some functions in the GStreamer core might install a custom SIGSEGV handler to better catch and report errors to the application. Currently this feature is enabled by default when loading plugins.

Applications might want to disable this behaviour with the `gst_segtrap_set_enabled()` function. This is typically done if the application wants to install its own handler without GStreamer interfering.

Returns : | `TRUE` if GStreamer is allowed to install a custom SIGSEGV handler.

Since 0.10.10

### gst_segtrap_set_enabled ()

    void                gst_segtrap_set_enabled             (gboolean enabled);

Applications might want to disable/enable the SIGSEGV handling of the GStreamer core. See `gst_segtrap_is_enabled()` for more information.

`enabled` : | whether a custom SIGSEGV handler should be installed.

Since 0.10.10

### gst_registry_fork_is_enabled ()

    gboolean            gst_registry_fork_is_enabled        (void);

By default GStreamer will perform scanning and rebuilding of the registry file using a helper child process.

Applications might want to disable this behaviour with the `gst_registry_fork_set_enabled()` function, in which case new plugins are scanned (and loaded) into the application process.

Returns : | `TRUE` if GStreamer will use the child helper process when rebuilding the registry.

Since 0.10.10

### gst_registry_fork_set_enabled ()

    void                gst_registry_fork_set_enabled       (gboolean enabled);

Applications might want to disable/enable spawning of a child helper process when rebuilding the registry. See `gst_registry_fork_is_enabled()` for more information.

`enabled` : | whether rebuilding the registry can use a temporary child helper process.

Since 0.10.10

### gst_update_registry ()

    gboolean            gst_update_registry                 (void);

Forces GStreamer to re-scan its plugin paths and update the default plugin registry.

Applications will almost never need to call this function, it is only useful if the application knows new plugins have been installed (or old ones removed) since the start of the application (or, to be precise, the first call to `gst_init()`) and the application wants to make use of any newly-installed plugins without restarting the application.

Applications should assume that the registry update is neither atomic nor thread-safe and should therefore not have any dynamic pipelines running (including the playbin and decodebin elements) and should also not create any elements or access the GStreamer registry while the update is in progress.

Note that this function may block for a significant amount of time.

Returns : | `TRUE` if the registry has been updated successfully (does not imply that there were changes), otherwise `FALSE`.

Since 0.10.12