[Bug 762302] New: Dynamically changing the pipeline: why flush any queued data?

[GStreamer (GNOME Bugzilla)]

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=762302

            Bug ID: 762302
           Summary: Dynamically changing the pipeline: why flush any
                    queued data?
    Classification: Platform
           Product: GStreamer
           Version: git master
                OS: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: Normal
         Component: documentation
          Assignee: gstreamer-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: gyunaev at gmail.com
        QA Contact: gstreamer-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
     GNOME version: ---

The documentation when talking about "Dynamically changing the pipeline"
explains why we need to make sure that there is no dataflow on unlinked pads -
"because that will cause a fatal pipeline error"

However it doesn't explain why "When unlinking elements from an upstream chain,
always make sure to flush any queued data in the element by sending an EOS
event" - notably it is unclear what would happen if I don't do that. Would it
be:

"If you do not do this, GStreamer will crash/format your hard drive/Universe
will collapse"; or

"If you do not do this, GStreamer will cause a fatal pipeline error in some
cases"; or

"If you do not do this, you'll lose this data"

In my opinion, explaining this is important as the code which doesn't do that
seems to work just fine in my case on two platforms, and since those changes
cause significant alteration of sound (pitch/tempo change), I don't care about
losing the data in buffers anyway.

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