Re: [gst-devel] Gstreamer with C++

[José Alburquerque <jaalburquerque cox net>]

Eric Jonas wrote:
> [continuing on  gtkmm-list] 
> Do you anticipate it being possible to use elements written in c++ from
> gstreamer pipelines in other languages (C, python, etc) ? I imagine the
> dealing with the complexity of C++ name mangling, lifecycle complexity,
> and ABI would make this difficult. 
>   

Yes I think this is right; I don't think it's possible to write 
GStreamer plugins in c++.  The GstPlugin 
<http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstPlugin.html> 
API explains (in the description) that a GstPluginDesc 
<http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstPlugin.html#GstPluginDesc> 
called "gst_plugin_desc" must be exported by the developer and then 
write the necessary plugin code.  We would have to find a way to use a 
slot in the GstPluginDesc for the GstPluginInitFunc 
<http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gstreamer/html/GstPlugin.html#GstPluginInitFunc> 
(a pointer to a plugin init function) and I'm not sure how we would go 
about this (partly because to start with we would need for the 
GstPluginInitFunc type to have an additional gpointer* parameter).  
Also, as you say, the gstreamermm library initialization and lifecycle 
of objects is something that we would most probably have to pay 
attention to.  I've been thinking about all this a bit since you asked, 
and presently this doesn't seem possible, though I may think about it a 
bit more and make a definite determination later (God willing).  Right 
now, I'd suggest not to plan on writing c++ plugins until this is made 
definite.  Does this help?

--
José Alburquerque